


A Desert Rain

by Whozawhatcha



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cultural Differences, Family, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, ManDadlorian, Parenthood, Pining, Romance, Single Parents, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smut? Maybe, Touch-Starved, canon tusken culture and shit i've made up, everyone has an oc to ship with the mandalorian and so do i, force sensitive tusken, i mused too hard on the comparisons and contrasts of mandalorian vs tusken culture, slow burn to make your balls fall off hopefully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27500704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whozawhatcha/pseuds/Whozawhatcha
Summary: The Sand People foist one of their own on the Mandalorian. She's touched by sorcery, like the Child. For all the Mandalorians and Sand People's differences, they're also very alike. And he's not going to lie, it's a relief to have another set of eyes watching the kid.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s), Din Djarin/Tusken Raider
Comments: 95
Kudos: 156





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a Star Wars fanfic before, but here we go. Just had a bug bite me real hard about Mandalorians and Tusken Raiders in particular, and whipped this up. I know there's been a couple Force-sensitive Tuskens in Star Wars canon, but they're always adopted humans, and look, I ain't cutting no corners. She's a Sand Person, through and through, whatever they might look like under their garb, not human.
> 
> Also, I haven't read enough Mandalorian fanfic, but you people who write the baby so well? Please give me some skills, how do you write children. It'll forever be a mystery to me.

**“I dream of rain**  
**I dream of gardens in the desert sand**  
**I wake in pain**  
**I dream of love as time runs through my hand”**

_**Desert Rose __ Sting** _

The first time the witchcraft comes to her, she is three years old and hungry.

  
She asks for the pallie, but no one hears her. The grown ups discuss something over her head that she does not understand. She focuses on the tough, leathery gray fruit on the table. She hungers, her throat is parched, and she craves the pale yellow flesh on the inside. Food is carefully regulated in the tribe, but surely they won’t miss her sneaking off to her room with just one pallie?

She wills it to come to her. The fruit wobbles and lifts slowly, rotating in the air like a womp rat rolling over the sands. Her hand reaches out to it.

Screeches of alarm fill her ears, and a hand swats the pallie down. Torsos turn to face her, and she shrinks. Her mother hurriedly gathers her and takes her to their closed off tent quarters. Her mother asks what happened, but she does not know. She can’t explain the witchcraft.

Her mother brings her to the Storyteller. He has not heard of stories of witchcraft like these, but only whispers from the last remnants of Ossein Scyk tribe near Mos Eisley, whispers of a vengeful spirit or demon that slaughtered them all.

They fear the spirit has a hold on her. The Storyteller cleanses her eyes with smoke that burns away the evil; he washes her eyes with water to purify her sight. She is stripped for this ceremony, something invasive and intimate. They bury her in the hot sands of the day, and she stays warm overnight. They unearth her in the morning, reborn afresh from the womb of the earth.

Then, they never speak of the incident again.

***

The second time witchcraft comes to her, she is six years old and angry.

  
In her youth, her fury was important. It was visceral. She breathed it in like hot, grainy sands choking her lungs, and it buzzed under her skin. It felt like the lashing winds of the desert rising up in her and bowing even the mountains under her wrath. The taste was freeing, and her father could not calm her.

In the future, her memory is unclear. It is as dark as the dunes in the night under a starry sky. What she remembers clearest is her father’s crumpled body, his gaderffi stick impaled in his back.

For a brief moment, she thinks he’s merely flown to his weapon. She dreams of this flight for the rest of her life, flying, falling, the impact on his weapon stowed in its place against the wall.

***

The third time witchcraft comes to her, she is 15 and stable.

  
She has had good, long years without the touch of the devil upon her. The Storyteller sees her every week to pray over her, so that the old gods may deliver her from the evil that lives inside her. They fear her anger, so they teach her to control it. She is given her bantha as a child and directed to speak her grievances, fears, and hopes to her. She is told to comb her bantha’s thick, wiry fur and untangle her dark thoughts. She spends long hours with Puba, polishing her curling horns and nuzzling soft, furry lips.

Few girls train with the boys to be warriors, but she does. She wanted to be a good mother, like her own mother who never let the Incident change things between them. She fears she won’t get the chance as a warrior, but the Storyteller orders that she learn to engage her anger, her hunger, her thirst, in productive ways.

She is a fierce warrior. Despite not wanting it, she grows into it. She thrives in it. She is the prodigal child to her teachers. Her ferocity and skill is unmatched among her peers.

It is almost enough to make the tribe not whisper behind her back about the Incident.

She slays a great krayt, and with the help from her tribe, dissects it for food. The pearl inside is lustrous and the size of a womp rat’s heart, with a burnished red gleam that reflects the dying suns. She tastes honor and respect from her tribe when she succeeds, even with the shadow of witchcraft over her. The hunting party whispers about the battle fervor that took them, that guided their motions and thoughts and strikes like a spirit’s possession. They speak in hushed words about her ferocity, the way she leapt too far, moved too fast, and sensed beyond what the rest could. The witchcraft was upon her with its unnatural touch.

The Storyteller soothes her. They perform rites with the magical krayt dragon bones to cleanse her and exorcise her, and the Storyteller admits that it was good that the spirit fought with her and not against her. She spends a long time with Puba that night, regaling her triumph, murmuring her fears, and braiding Puba’s matted fur. Her bantha is gentle and a well of strength and assurance. Despite the dangers of the night, she sleeps in the crook of Puba’s shoulder, absorbed in her fur, her bantha’s head curled around her as a windbreak against the cold. She is warm and loved all night.

Weeks later, she is engaged to Gr’ruthak, a strong young warrior her age that fears nothing, not even her. When they disrobe at night, it is both terrifying and thrilling. She thinks she understands the terrible intimacy of things then, the vulnerability of skin and knowing someone both in sight and in heart. She wants to retreat into the safety of her clothing, but she opens herself to him, and he, to her.

Her skin is alarmingly sensitive, but she trusts him with that, too.

***

Witchcraft invades her life at 18 when she miscarries her first son.

  
The blow is almost too much for her to bear. Her mother perished in a scuffle between tribes the same year, and now, she must endure this without her mother’s kindness. She weeps while she passes her son from her body in dark, gritty brown clots, like the mud from freshly spilled blood. She weeps in Gr’ruthak’s arms. She weeps in Puba’s coarse fur. The great bantha huffs warm breath against her and nuzzles, trying to lick the tears under her mask.

Puba is already a mother to a young bantha, mated to Gr’ruthak’s bantha years ago. She is pregnant again. She weeps in great fear for the health of Puba’s children, afraid the witchcraft will corrupt and drain their life too.

Her relief is so great when Puba bears another healthy daughter that she cries out. The sands push away from her in all directions, an invisible shock wave erupting from the sound of her grief and happiness. The people fear her. Gr’ruthak holds her hand, and he does not fear the witchcraft.

***

Witchcraft invades her life at 21 when she miscarries her second son.

  
She is inconsolable. She leaves with Puba in the night, and in the unforgiving sands of Tatooine, she screams her anguish and rage to the clear night sky. Her voice is haggard and raw, echoing over the dunes. A great darkness unfurls in her and the shock waves beat through the air and scorch the sand into glass.

Puba bellows in fright, and she rushes to her, comforting her. Puba snuffs and nuzzles back, her truest friend, her other half. When they reach the settlement in the morning, Puba shows her the third calf she has borne and continues to try to give the bantha to her. She headbutts Puba’s broad face, scratches deep in her fur, and mollifies.

Gr’ruthak does not question her nor does he intrude upon her time with Puba. The relationship between bantha and rider is sacred. The kinship between mothers is also sacred. When she comes back to him, Gr’ruthak only promises that they will try as many times as she wants when she is ready.

***

Years later, the witchcraft is silent when her daughter is stillborn.

  
She endures in silence, afraid of the magic she conjured in the desert after her second son. She leans against Puba, tired of bearing her children only to have to give them directly to the land. She thinks she is cursed to never be a mother. She prays blessings upon Puba for having the children she cannot, and loves her as soundly as the moon reflects the sun.

She gazes over the mountains and vows to leave her sorrows at the highest peak where they cannot reach her. Her story has already been told by the Storyteller, who gazed upon her as a child and knew she was a warrior. She joins the hunters again, unable to bear the burden of ever trying for another child.

***

She ignores the witchcraft for many years until it spews from her like the acid from a krayt dragon.

  
Puba is weakened by a hard birth when disease sweeps through the bantha herd. She refuses to eat. Her gums rot. Her fur thins. She cannot lift her head to her.

She is wrecked with the fear of losing her bantha. She prays, and sacrifices, and spends her nights in the desert with Puba. She listens to the soft, labored breath of her bantha and hears the fluid in her lungs. She begs the gods to spare her bantha. She pleads for mercy, because Puba has been her constant in life. Puba has been her rock. Puba is her first and truest love, and their bond runs deeper than what she has with Gr’ruthak. Puba knows all of her hopes and dreams, and even her darkest secrets.

Puba takes it all to her grave.

It is the burden that breaks the bantha’s back. She howls and cries her anguish when her Puba is taken from her. She will not be the first to have to wander the Dune Sea in the hopes that the spirit of their bantha will lead them to a new bantha, so they may be accepted into the tribe. She will not be the last. But her grief is all consuming, and she thinks of Puba’s babies, growing strong and healthy, and she thinks of her children, a tiny dead bundle, and clots of gritty black blood passing from her for hours.

Gr’ruthak cannot reach her. He holds her shoulders, shaking her—

She screams. The noise splinters like the crack of mountains falling. It wails like the desert winds scouring the valleys. It roars like the terrible fury of the krayt dragons.

Something loosens and breaks in her. The scream is instantly cathartic and releases her. She slumps, dizzied by the power of it. Gr’ruthak’s hands are not holding her shoulders. When she looks up, she sees the radius of sand blown back, and Gr’ruthak, collapsed in a boneless heap, not unlike her stillborn daughter.

She thinks of her father, weightless, flying.

***

They are about to exile her when distraction pulls them elsewhere.

  
They call him a “Mandalorian,” and he and the marshal from Mos Pelgo want to kill the king krayt. An uneasy alliance with the town is made, and the warriors move out. She wants to go—she knows she is a fierce warrior, and they will need all the help they can get to slay the king krayt, but she is forbidden. Her tribe fears her. She is locked up, and she vows silence, afraid of her own voice.

Against all odds, with the Mandalorian’s help, the king krayt is slain. Word reaches to them about the tale of him cheating death, the way he dove into the king krayt’s belly and blew it up from the inside out, flying free from its great maw. It sounds like a tale exaggerated, but the warriors all swear upon its truth.

It is the greatest story that has ever come to her tribe. The Storyteller spends long hours that afternoon, memorizing, scripting, and perfecting the words that will tell this tale for generations to come.

By evening, she is called to the Storyteller. Her knees ache from the hours spent in fervent prayer and repentance. It is time for her exile. Her crimes cannot be forgiven. She has freshly buried her husband and her bantha, and she has no one left. Only herself, and the darkness in her stomach.

“You will not be exiled into the desert,” the Storyteller says to her. “You will go into exile with the Mandalorian.”

Her head jerks up. A cold chill runs down her spine. She frantically signs, _I do not understand. The tradition is to the desert. He comes from the outside, in his metal ship and his metal skin. I cannot leave the land of my home._

“The Mandalorian knows us and respects us,” the Storyteller growls. “You should not fear him. He searches for his kind. When he finds them, they know the way to find the practitioners of witchcraft.” Her hands sink in fear. The power buzzes in her veins, unpredictable. Not sated. She sees Gr’ruthak flying in her mind’s eye, and she swallows her protests down.

The Storyteller speaks and signs, so she cannot misunderstand his intentions. “He cares for a child with the same witchcraft. It can pick things up, move them with a wave of its hand. You and this child are the same, touched by witchcraft. We have done all we can to contain it in you, but over and over, it escapes you, more destructive than before. You must go with the Mandalorian to find answers we cannot give you. You must find the Jedi, the practitioners of witchcraft, and have them teach you to control your power. Only then may you return to the Dune Sea to wander, and only when Puba’s spirit leads you to a new bantha may you return to this tribe.”

Grief wells in her throat, stifled cries that choke off her breath. Her hands tremble when she signs, _But he is not of this world. He knows not of our connection to the land. He is the opposite of us, and he will take me on his ship away from my home. My feet will be taken from the land, and I will no longer have my connection to home. This is not merely banishment, this is sacrilege. This is cruel. I will cease to be._

“You have already ceased to be,” the Storyteller interrupts her. “Your family is destroyed. Your bantha has perished. You atone for your father with the blood of your children. You atone for your husband with your bantha.” She tries to suppress it, but a wretched sob falls from her. She grabs her throat, squeezing it, stifling the grief. She cannot make the same mistakes. She will never make a sound again. “Now, when you should be exiled to never return, to die alone in the Dune Sea, you are given a second chance. You must learn yourself. You must control the witchcraft within. You must remake yourself while honoring your ancestors. Even plants that have been uprooted can adapt to new ground, but they never forget the nourishing soil of home. So too must you learn to adapt and find your way.”

She hangs her head. The next part of her story has already been dictated, and she cannot change it. She can only walk the path before her.

 _When do I leave?_ she signs.

The Storyteller nods his head.

“Pack your things. You leave now.”

***

The last thing he needs is to be saddled with another pathetic life form. But the Sand People are insistent once they hear of the sorcerers, and when they press if the child can lift and throw things without touching them, he tells them the truth. They call it witchcraft. He thinks they’re not far off the mark.

  
They tell him that she will be a good companion to have with him. She was once a mother, they tell him, and she will be more than happy to help him care for the child. She is one of their most fierce warriors, and she will be able to help him fight. He only relents because he wants to keep on friendly terms with the Sand People, and if she is all they say she will be, then maybe another set of eyes on the kid will be good. When he asks if she helped them fight the king krayt, they tell him no. When he asks why, they are elusive, saying only that she must stay to grieve.

They’ve cut him a heavy chunk of krayt meat for his food stores. At the end of the day, they bring her to him. He watches her being led over the dunes by another Sand Person, her shroud heavy about her. She has a single pack on her back along with a rifle and her gaderffi stick. A massiff follows her heels. He’s thankful she travels light.

He leans to the Sand Person next to him and asks, “Is she dangerous?” They are too willing to be rid of her. He sees their body language, the way they walk apart from her, stare at her as she comes over the ridge, and make warding signs with their hands. The Tusken turns all the way around so his back is to her. He signs so he won’t be overheard.

_Only when she is angry._

His jaw tightens under his mask. He casts a glance to the child who blinks with large black eyes at him.

“If she hurts the child, I will kill her,” he warns.

“So be it,” the Tusken says.

The escort brings her to him. He gestures and says, “This is K’Grawa. We thank you for taking her.” K’Grawa bows her head in deference to him. Her mask is decorated more than the males, with the tusks of womp rats running down it.

“Let’s go,” he says.

The speeder bows under their combined weight and the weight of the krayt meat. It runs no faster than her massiff, so the pace is slower than he expected. She clutches the bike for balance, not him, and leans against the meat. She keeps as much distance as possible from him.

Mos Eisley is far. They will have to camp once before they arrive by the next afternoon. He spends his time thinking, organizing his thoughts about what the Tusken told him. By night, he’s ready to question her in depth.

He doesn’t have much to burn for a campfire, but he does his best, striking a flint several times over on the twigs he collected. K’Grawa watches him, and finally, she reaches in her pack, kneels in front of him, and tosses a small piece of coal to him—no, not coal. Shit. Bantha shit. This time when he strikes the flint, the turd catches fast, burns slow, and helps the rest of the shrubbery burn.

He cuts a slab from the krayt meat for himself, for her, and for his exceedingly carnivorous charge. Her massiff plops on the sands, exhausted from a steady day of running. He’s impressed with the dog’s tenacity. He cuts a generous portion and throws it to it, and the reptile catches the meat, shredding it greedily.

Then, he eases himself into the sand opposite of her. The child lingers close to him, playing with the edge of his cape while the meat sizzles over the fire. It watches with those big, dark eyes, like he isn’t sure what to make of her.

“I’m going to lay some ground rules,” he says, and K’Grawa nods. He gestures to the child. “This is my charge. While you’re with me, you protect it first. Before me. Before yourself.” She nods. “If you cause any harm to it, you will not live to regret it.” She nods again, quietly obedient. Between her extremely still posture, lack of speaking, and mask, she is hard to read. He thinks she’s doing that on purpose. From what he’s seen, the Sand People have always been expressive with their body language, and physically affectionate to boot.

He nudges her shell of indifference. “Do you speak?”

Her hands rise, sign sharply, _Yes,_ and do not elaborate more. He wonders if her silence is a choice or a disability.

“Does he have a name?” he asks, gesturing to the massiff.

 _She,_ she corrects with a wave of her hand. She signs the letters g, n, a, r, and r.

“Gnarr,” he repeats, and the reptile looks up with its toothy maw. He heaves a breath. “The Sand People fear you,” he says. She folds her hands in lap and waits, unflinching. “Why?”

There’s a long pause of empty silence, the night still and windless. K’Grawa is poised and her breaths measured. He can’t get a good read on her. He thinks she won’t respond when she lifts her hands, signs, _The witchcraft,_ and places them back in her lap.

“And what does your witchcraft do?”

This is what he’s keen on. They mentioned she can move things with her mind, but that’s not enough to make a tribe, no matter how superstitious, fear her enough to exile her. And not exile her just to the Dune Sea, but hopefully off planet with him. If she’s dangerous, he wants to know how, because his ward won’t be hurt under his watch.

K’Grawa draws a deep breath like she’s waited for this. She signs, _I can move things without touching them. The witchcraft will possess me at my lowest and lash out with violence. Is is enough to throw things. Sometimes, when I fight, I move unnaturally. I am too fast, and I sense danger before it shows itself._ A pause here. He watches her hands hover, motionless. _The witchcraft possesses me at my lowest. It hurts people. I hurt people. But I will not hurt you or your boy. I will not lose control, because I have nothing left to lose._

She folds her hands again, and he’s left untangling her words. What she’s told him, and what she hasn’t. She’s left too many implications and not enough explanations, and he doesn’t like it. He reaches out, turns the meat so it cooks evenly, and scoops the kid back to him when it tries to run off.

Her magic sounds different from the ad’ika’s. It sounds stronger in some aspects, but she describes it like an erupting volcano. She frames it as if she has control of it, until she doesn’t. The kid might’ve picked up an entire mudhorn, but it took a great deal of effort, much like its healing takes great effort. Other than the one off time with Cara, the child’s never hurt anyone with its power.

The witchcraft possessed her at her lowest—she said it twice. The Sand People said she could not join the king krayt hunt because she had to isolate to grieve. The implications there, juxtaposed against her elusive wording, do not paint things in a bright light. 

He backtracks from the thought. He can’t throw accusations without proof. Instead, he asks, “How does it hurt people?”

K’Grawa draws in a deep breath and releases it slowly. The air crackles through her mask. She signs, _It consumes. It drains. It throws. People fly. Bones break. Necks snap. Life dies. The earth eats._

He wants none of that near the ad’ika. “And can you control it?”

Her hands cut across her chest. _No. We have exorcised and redistributed its flow with great success. But sometimes it will build until it explodes. It will surge up and consume me. I do not know how to stop it. That is why they send me to find the sorcerers, so I will not be a danger to those around me._

He’s tempted to leave her now. He’d rather desert her in the Dune Sea to die in exile according to her traditions than keep her with him, a ticking time bomb of violence he won’t be able to control. He doesn’t need to put the kid in that much danger.

As if sensing his thoughts, K’Grawa abruptly adds, _It will not happen again. The witchcraft cannot take me anymore, for I have left my grievances at the peak of Mount Eltawa. I have nothing left to lose. I have nothing left to fear. I am hollow, and it has nothing left to consume. You and your boy will be safe, and if I falter, then strike me down and end my story._

He sits, studying her across the fire, sorting through her words, and weighing her intent. He believes her. She’s been exiled from her people. What more could they take from her, the dog? He somehow doubts it’s a substitute for anyone or anything. It’s the bantha that are sacred to the Sand People, not massiffs.

The tot toddles to her, even past the reptile that sniffs with its long snout full of sharp teeth. She tilts her head down to the child, and he wonders where her bantha is. His jaw clenches, thinking of the sacrificial bantha to the krayt dragon. Surely not?

The kid whines loudly to be taken up, completely with demanding, grabby hands. K’Grawa turns her head first to him for permission. He nods. Then, she reaches down, scooping the child into her lap with ease. It settles, gabbing to itself and biting on her thumb. She gently rubs one of its satin-like ears.

“Why don’t you speak with your voice?” he asks.

With her arms full of baby, she signs one handed, but he still reads, _A personal choice,_ and lets that line of questioning drop. Maybe Sand People take a vow of silence during the grieving process.

She’ll be far too much trouble with her sorcery far too unpredictable. He should have left her at the mercy of her tribe and refused to take her. If he’s kind, he’ll keep his blaster on stun around her. Otherwise, he won’t tolerate a slip up that could threaten the ad’ika.

The child pulls at the tusks decorating her helm, but she doesn’t stop it. Instead, she signs, _And you? Is it true your helmet never comes off?_

“Not in front of anyone.”

The smell of the meat is sweet and mouthwatering. They have no tent. There’s no privacy here to be had, between him and her. This wasn’t an issue with just the kid.

K’Grawa signs, _Neither does mine._ Her hands still unnaturally between her sentences, and he reads her hesitation in the dead space. _We must eat and drink. The desert is unkind._ Her hands move, twisting, blocking her sight, words made into gestures. _If you promise not to behold me, I surely promise not to behold you._

He weighs this for a long moment, because he knows she’s right. The thought of her even accidentally catching a glimpse of him without his helmet makes his skin crawl, but he knows the Sand People well enough. Much like it’s against his religion to be seen, so too is it against hers. And next to the honor of the Mandalorians, he knows the Sand People also keep their promises.

“Fine,” he says shortly. K’Grawa nods, picks up the child and set it away from her. She ushers it with her fingers to go back to him, and the kid toddles his way. They take their portions, and they turn away from one another in the night. He waits to hear her remove hers, but she doesn’t.

He knows she’s waiting on him, so he sighs, and with careful fingers, removes his helmet. The air is dry and relieving against the sweat that’s built up in his hair. He carefully places the helm in the sand, wanting to check to make sure she’s not looking at him, but holding his ground of neutrality.

A soft rustle whispers behind him, on the other side of the fire. He thinks of how it’s been since he was a child that his face has been seen, and yet for all eternity, no one has ever seen the face of a Tusken.

He eats his dinner with the child, far more comfortable with the knowledge of another race that respects and values the secrecy of culture as much as he does.

***

She’s on the back of the bike when it gets flipped.

  
She’s preoccupied with the child, tiny, green, with great big eyes and even bigger ears, and the tiniest button nose. Compared to the Mandalorian, it’s unprotected from the elements. She’s noticed it has no gloves for its hands, and no boots to cover its feet from the hot sands. Neither does it have a hat to protect its head from the burning sun, or even goggles to protect its eyes from the whipping sand.

So when they crash, her thoughts are squarely on the baby. The bike jolts to an abrupt stop, and the breath jolts from her as she goes flying. For a brief moment, time slows. She’s flying through the air, flying like her father flew, like Gr’ruthak flew, and the witchcraft comes to her like the instinct of some forgotten fear she cannot shake. She looks, and she sees the Mandalorian’s child, squealing like a punted womp rat, flying head over heels, careening to the ground.

Adrenaline fills her throat. She reaches out to grab it, and the child freezes in the air, hovering over the sands, just like she levitated the pallie so long ago.

Then, she crashes into the dirt and time speeds up. She grunts and pain flares her back when she crashes, tossing and turning in the sands. She groans, and lifts her head to the sound of blaster fire and someone shouting, “Get the child!”

Her head whips to the baby. She barks, and Gnarr launches towards the farthest bounty hunter. She reaches back, and her rifle has fallen somewhere in the sands. The Mandalorian yelps, doubled up two against one, and only one man stands between her and him.

She whips out her gaffi stick, and with a war cry, charges the nearest bruiser, a Vodran. His aim falters in the wake of the might of the Sand People, and his blaster fires wide. She winds up and knocks the gun out of his hand with the blunt end of her gaffi stick, and he leaps back, scrambling for a knife. She rushes him, allowing him no time to recover and slashes with the spiked end of her stick.

Her foe gasps. Blood flies in a fine spray. He jabs at her and misses, catching only fabric. She uses two hands, swings, and cudgels his jaw upward. Teeth shatter and fly. He collapses unmoving in the sands, and she stabs with the pointed end and punctures his throat so it fills with blood.

She looks up. The Mandalorian has dispatched his two. Gnarr is using the small one—an abandoned Jawa?—as a chew toy. The child runs with an audible whimper to the Mandalorian who picks him up. He tucks the kid close to his chest for a long moment, and he surveys the field of battle. His chest is heaving with the last dredges of alarm, and he looks at the man she’s killed, and then at her.

He is a man with no tribe. She sticks her weapon into the ground and signs, _There is strength in numbers._ When the dirt has congealed the blood on her weapon, she swishes it through the topsoil, letting the coarse sands clean it. Then, she begins to scavenge, taking credits, ammunition, food, and water. At the last second, she looks back on the fallen blaster, takes it and the holster to hide beneath her skirts later.

The Mandalorian does not say thank you. He gathers his things in silence, his child keeping close with discomfort. She smacks her gaderffi stick to her palm, and Gnarr leaves the mangled body, licking her chops proudly. She pats her massiff and grabs her bag. She offers to help the Mandalorian with his gear, and the krayt meat, but he simply says, “I’ve got it,” and brooks no argument. She waits while he ties everything to the long, crooked nose of the speeder wreckage, puts the child in its bag, hefts up the luggage, and begins walking.

She strafes directly behind him with Gnarr, unsure how to relate to such an icy, untouchable man compared to the hot-blooded sincerity of the Sand People. She doesn’t even know his name.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the comments and kudos! ^-^ I'm glad K'Grawa is turning out to be a flawed, but sympathetic character. By virtue of being a primitive character in a highly technological world like STAR WARS, she has a lot to learn, but I also like that she has a long way to go to become an honest good person. It's been VERY fun considering her culture and how she might approach things in the world.
> 
> That being said, I thought I was going to save her seeing snow and the ocean for the first time until The Mandalorian said, "Here. Frontload her learning about the world first, and learning to get along with the Mandalorian second." Honestly, I'm pleased. She turns the whole "character sees snow and thinks it's magical" trope on its head, and there's promise of how she and the Mandalorian are going to interact in the future.
> 
> As it were, I hope you all enjoy this chapter even more than the first!
> 
> GLOSSARY:  
> Uli'ah - Tusken word for child

**“The more I see, the less I know**  
**The more I like to let it go**  
**Deep beneath the cover of another perfect wonder where it's so white as snow”**

_**Snow (Hey Oh) __ Red Hot Chili Peppers** _

  
“I’m not a taxi service.”

“Well obviously you are,” and the human, Peli, gestures to her.

K’Grawa narrows her eyes behind her mask. She hates Mos Eisley. She hates the people who judge her, she hates the wrinkle of Peli’s nose toward her, and she hates their ugly buildings of clay. The colonizers’ city is like an open sore on the surface of Tatooine. The Sand People are losing the war for the planet because the settlers are like ants. Every time they kick one of their homes over, fountains and fountains of the parasites spew back out. The local homesteads with their vaporators are nothing compared to the hive in this city. If they cannot even stop the small homesteaders, how can they even begin to topple a city where they are outnumbered a hundred to one?

She grinds the butt of her gaderffi into the hangar floor and ignores whatever look the Mandalorian sends her. He’s chosen to cook the krayt meat with the unholy not-fire from his metal ship. She’s convinced he doesn’t have a single brain of common sense under that helmet. Krayt needs to be cooked over an open fire, so the meat tenderizes and the smoke flavors it.

Gnarr rumbles next to her. The massiff creeps just a touch closer to the great hunk of meat and licks her lips. The child—also enamored with the meat—suddenly turns its attention on the frog alien that walks into the hangar.

K’Grawa only understands snippets of the fast conversation. Galactic Basic is unwieldy at best in a Tusken’s mouth, too soft and wispy with sounds that are difficult to make. She doesn’t understand how the ship is going to take them to a moon. Tatooine has three to choose from, and she’s terrified of offending one of the goddesses by putting her feet on their back.

The only thing she’s interested in is the eggs. Those are the woman’s children? She peers at the orange orbs bobbing in the tank on her back, sequestered in water. Her knuckles grip her gaderffi tightly. That water was poached from Tatooine. She wrestles with the idea of the frog woman needing water to preserve her future children, and the holy right the Sand People have to all water on the planet.

Her boys passed from her in thick black clots, sometimes in globs as big as the frog woman’s clutch of eggs. The woman boards the ship, and K’Grawa looks away. Mother to mother, she will afford her mercy for stealing the water.

It takes some time for the rest of the meat to cook. The Mandalorian takes a portion inside for himself, to eat in the privacy of his metal ship. K’Grawa tosses a portion to Gnarr. She sits on the warm sands of Tatooine, unwilling to step foot within that machine until she absolutely has to. She feels like she’s clinging to the past and it’s being ripped from her grip. She has no tribe. She has no home. No family. No bantha. The only thing that remains is the connection to the land, and soon, that too will be taken from her. She fears the future and the changes and uncertainties it holds. And isn’t that weak of her? The might of the Sand People, cowed by fear of the unknown. She digs her gaderffi into the dirt, arguing with herself for letting the cowardice of the Older Brother Sun sneak into her bones.

All Sand People know the story. The Younger Sun showed his true face to the tribe—a sin—and the Elder Sun attempted to kill his brother as recompense. He struck a blow, failed. Burning and bleeding, the Younger Sun pursues his sibling across the sky, and the wily old star fled for the hills and safety. It was the Older Sun’s fate to never rest again. While the Younger Sun had exposed his face, the Older Sun had exposed his failure.

The Younger spirit urges to attack. The Elder tells to hide. They are counsels from the condemned, and K’Grawa turns the story over in her mind like a burial stone, trying to raise an answer from it. Is she running from a rightful death in the Jundland Wastes? Is she running from her home in a metal ship? There is nothing for her to fight by leaving. The suns have set. She cannot look at her two true selves, exposed only in the shadow of the Twin Brothers. Do the Suns know of her treachery? Have they already abandoned her?

The Mandalorian comes back out to collect the rest of the meat for storage. K’Grawa watches him work and reject the help of others, and only begrudgingly helping the frog woman to her home. He may not be a true colonizer, as he does not stay, but he has no idea what it is like to have a community around you. He is too stilted with his child. She wonders if there can be any warmth in him while he hides in his cold shell of metal.

She thinks of the witchcraft crawling under her skin. She mourns the damage it has done to her family, her life, and that it has brought her here, to this man who will take her away from her home.

In a burst of frightening clarity, she considers the damage it has done, and if she could turn such damage upon the colonizers. Her breath thins as she imagines it. If her war cry could murder her enemies, instead of her loves? She would have a power no Tusken has possessed before. She would have a power no settler could stand up to. If the sorcerers can teach her to control it, this could be the answer for her redemption. With enough power, they could eradicate the off-worlders from their land.

She turns this over in her mind, debating the pros and cons of flirting with the witchcraft. She likes the idea of controlling it, instead of the other way around. K’Grawa packs the concept away, knowing until the sorcerers teach her, she won’t have a chance of controlling the witchcraft. For now, she has a goal, and she already feels more control over her situation.

The Mandalorian has packed away his things. He looks back down the ramp at her. “Time to go.”

 _I am coming,_ she signs. She stands, pats her thigh, and Gnarr lopes beside her. She strides to the ship with purpose, and she’s so certain until she’s not.

She roots at the foot of the incline, staring at the flat pane of metal. If she looks hard enough, she can see a false mirror of herself distorted in its grimy surface. The only time her feet have ever left the land is to ride Puba. She wrings her hands in fear. This is it. When she steps aboard this contraption, she’s accepted her fate. There’s still time to turn tail and run into the desert, safe in her traditions, never accepting anything new. Is it heresy to seek answers when they lead you away from all you’ve known?

“Are you coming or not?” the Mandalorian asks, and peevish impatience curdles his tone.

 _I am coming,_ she repeats. She kneels down, and she scoops sand into a pocket of her bag, unable to bear leaving the earth behind. If she must leave Tatooine, she will not leave without the soil of home. She will never truly leave Tatooine. Her every instinct will lead her back home when the time is right. She will find her way, control the witchcraft within, and return to help her people in the war for their lands.

She steps onto the ship, and Gnarr’s claws click against the artificial land. The Mandalorian waits impatiently for her to make the ascent, and he hits a button. The ground jolts beneath her, and she leaps forward. The ramp lifts closed, encasing her inside the ship. Claustrophobia sinks it claws into her. The ceiling is too low, the walls too tight, and she is less than a pace away from the Mandalorian. It feels like a tomb. Even the tents at home have more space.

“I’ll show you where you can rest,” he says. He’s gruff, but his voice is silky soft, the opposite of the grit of the Sand People’s cadence. “Then I’ll need you to teach your massiff some boundaries.”

She nods curtly. He walks her through the tiny ship with its walls as tight as the stomach of a krayt. It’s no wonder his armor is as shiny and polished as a krayt pearl, him living inside the stomach of this beast. She eyes the little suns encased in the ceiling that shed light. Nothing here is natural. It is all metal and gray and witchcraft.

He shows her a storage room where he’s cleared a space for her, and she signs, _Thank you,_ to the space allotted. She could knock her elbows between the walls and the containers it’s so tight. He leads her around the ship, showing her the different areas and telling her the many places Gnarr needs to keep out of. She nods, making Gnarr sit and watch her, signs, gestures, and tears a treat from a strip of meat in her pocket.

When he has shown her and the dog the full route of the ship, he lays the child down for rest and steps up the ladder. She follows him into the cockpit with its three chairs. The frog lady is in the right seat. He takes the one in front of a pane with many lights and buttons and switches. He picks them seemingly at random, and things begin to whir and roar and vibrate beneath her feet. K’Grawa sinks into the free chair, clutching it tightly. She looks at the frog lady. The frog lady stares back with huge, dark, wet eyes.

A jolt shakes the ship. K’Grawa’s breath hitches when she FEELS the rock of weightlessness and the force of gravity crash into her. She stares out the front of the glass, terror rising in her throat as the ship rises, and rises above the building, and shoots above even the mountain peaks. The sky swallows them up, and fire licks at the ship. She thinks they’re going to explode as the atmosphere shakes and cooks them for daring to defy the rules the gods have set for them.

And then, they’re flying in an endless night sky, passing even the moons.

K’Grawa unlatches her vice-like grip from the seat. She stares at the back of the Mandalorian’s head, ignoring the frog lady in the hopes the other woman hasn’t seen her visible terror at taking off into the unknown. He absently flips switches, like he’s bored, when he says, “Now I’m gonna ask you to stay strapped in whenever you’re seated. Traveling sublight is a bit dicey these days. Whether it’s pirates, or warlords, someone either ends up with a nice chunk of change or your ship.”

The woman croaks musically, and K’Grawa looks at her. The frog peeks back before focusing on the Mandalorian. “I don’t speak whatever language that is,” he replies, waving a hand helplessly. “You speak Huttese?” Nothing. He butchers asking her what language she speaks in Huttese, and K’Grawa crosses her arms in judgment. He speaks terrible Huttese.

The panel in front of him twinkles with light and shapes. They must mean something to him, because he keeps toggling things with a heavy sigh at the language barrier. “I’m gonna hit the rack,” he says. “I’ve set the nav for our course. It’s gonna take a while—” and he swivels around to face them, “so I recommend you get some rest.” He stands, brushing by them, and K’Grawa watches him go with alarm.

Is his ship like a bantha? Does it know the way home like an instinct ingrained in its bones? He slides down the ladder, leaving the two of them alone in silence. The frog lady seems nonplussed by him abandoning the front, so K’Grawa resolves not to let her notice her upset.

The woman lifts a hand and gives a small wave. K’Grawa mimics her. Then, the frog woman slouches down and laces her fingers to go to sleep.

K’Grawa stares out the front of the ship. The stars are endless. The hills of the Dune Sea rolled and rolled, endless, but it is nothing compared to the vast emptiness before her. Are all the stars distant suns? Do they all have their own planets? Their own people? Why would they come to settle on Tatooine when resources are already so thin? Why would they gut her planet of what is rightfully theirs if there are so many others to be had?

The sky opens beyond knowing, and vertigo wracks her. She closes her eyes against the infinity before her. She doesn’t want to think of what is out there. She envisions her cot at home, safe in her tent, and Gnarr keeping watch at the flap. Her fingers grip her skirts tightly. She resents the witchcraft for what it’s taken from her, and she misses Gr’ruthak so much it’s like a wound in her chest.

She pretends she is home and safe and loved until she falls asleep, betrayed by the acrid, metallic smell of the spaceship in her nose.

***

She’s never willingly riding in a spaceship ever again!

She doesn’t know the reason they had to flee. She assumes they were raiders of some sort. It doesn’t matter. She clutches her throat, stifling her screams. After a terrifyingly fast flight—how does the Mandalorian see where he is going? How does he keep up with the dizzying speed? Is he also touched by the witchcraft?—they crash. They skid to a stop on a blindingly white planet, and she hears the other two ships roar overhead.

For a brief moment, it’s silent. The woman next to her gasps and the Mandalorian silently takes stock of them both. K’Grawa tugs on her seatbelt, thinking first of Gnarr, not belted down, and then—

She smacks the Mandalorian’s shoulder pauldron, and he jumps. He turns to look at her, snapping, “What—?”

K’Grawa cuts him off, signing, _Do you always wreck your metal box with a child on board?_ Her spine straightens. _Do you keep your child strapped down or do you let him bounce around like a womp rat?_

A muffled, thunderous crack splits beneath them, and the entire ship tilts and groans. She can’t see his eyes, but she feels the eye contact she makes with the Mandalorian. The ground crumbles and they fly weightless into darkness.

***

This is how she scrambles to the back of the ship, vowing never to ride in a spaceship again. It’s cold. Colder than the coldest nights on Tatooine, and she’s stumbling to the rear to go down the ramp with Gnarr when she realizes—

The back isn’t open. The side is. The metal is ripped apart, torn back by the force of the crash, or the fall, and icy air blows in with soft white dust. The frigid wind bites into her bones. K’Grawa crosses her arms and steps outside, staring around. They’re inside a massive cave, and dust falls from the sky like a tepid sandstorm. She looks down at the white sand beneath her feet, and it leaves the imprint of her footsteps like mud after the spring rains.

“Hey!” She jumps, and the Mandalorian is standing in the hole of his ship. “Get back in here! It’s cold!”

If it weren’t freezing, she might have asserted herself and told him to kark off while she explored. Instead, she scurries back to the ship to get out of the icy air, and she slips inside.

_Where are we?_ she signs. _How does it rain sand?_

“It’s not sand,” he grunts. He’s busy tying a tarp over the opening, to stop the cold air from flooding his mobile home. “It’s snow.”

She has to wait until he secures the wind break before she can catch his attention again. She signs, _What is snow?_

He blasts out a breath, frustrated, and K’Grawa’s spine stiffens. He thinks she’s stupid just because she hasn’t experienced snow before? He finally stammers, “It—It’s frozen rain,” and brushes by. K’Grawa stands, petrified, mind trying to wrap around this.

It’s frozen rain. It’s water. She stares at the snow scattered inside, and she can see it now. The white is glistening, it’s wet, and it’s melting because of the last dredges of warmth inside the metal ship.

She has the irrational urge to rush to preserve the water. It’s a holy, life-preserving substance. The Sand People have always venerated the water, so much so that there isn’t even a personified god for it. Water IS. Water is a gift and a necessity. Water is life.

But this isn’t the holy water of Tatooine. She is on a foreign world, with foreign snow-water, a frozen rain, and there is an abundance of it. White hot anger pierces her, and her fists clench. She gasps in ragged breaths, ignoring the woman and the Mandalorian bickering.

There is so much water here on this planet. This moon. Wherever she is, and whatever she has endured. The people who live here—if anyone does—have life at their fingertips. It coats the earth. It falls, languid and luxurious from the sky, unhurried unlike the torrential downpours of Tatooine releasing all it has in one burst. It is soft. It is cold. It is wet. It mimics the sands of home like a taunt.

K’Grawa boils in the heat of her anger, hating the snow with all her might.

***

When the Mandalorian leaves to try to fix his metal ship, it leaves K’Grawa and the frog woman alone with Gnarr and the baby. Gnarr is planted on K’Grawa’s extended legs, chin in her lap, helping to keep her warm. The child leaves its food and toddles to her side to cuddle. K’Grawa scoops it up off the freezing floor—no feet coverings!—and lifts her shroud. Cool air rushes her front, and the baby blinks wide at her.

 _Warm,_ she signs.

She doesn’t think it understands her signing, but it understands warmth. The uli’ah curls up on her front, its clawed fingers and toes digging into her clothes. She drops her shroud over it and tucks the cloth under its butt to insulate it.

At first, they sit in silence. The frog lady finishes her meal, and K’Grawa leaves hers untouched. It is food from a metal box. It is not natural. Its texture looks rubbery, like the black insulation on the vaporators the colonizers use. She lets Gnarr gobble it up, and too curious, she scoops the snow into the tin to take back to her people.

They idle, and finally, the woman shuffles back to the machine she performed her witchery on. She grabs the dangling piece and puts it by her mouth.

“Hello,” she squeaks in her froggy voice, and the machine parrots it out to K’Grawa in the colonizers tongue. “Do you speak Basic?”

Speak it? Hardly. Understand? That, K’Grawa does. She signs, _I understand,_ and the woman toddles uncertainly on her feet, like the child does.

“That is sign language,” she says. “I do not understand it.” She watches with wary, luminous eyes. K’Grawa straightens her back with pride. The woman knows the might of the Sand People. She knows to fear her, and not even cradling a baby dents her intimidation. And yet, the woman steps toward her, attempting to hand her the knobbed end of the cord.

K’Grawa eyes it with distrust. What does she expect her to do with this? She cannot speak. She swore it off. She has not spoken since Puba and Gr’ruthak died, and it has only been days. She can’t break her vow so early. It would be disrespectful, would it not?

The frog woman waits a long moment, but when it is apparent that K’Grawa won’t accept, she gives a small sigh and puts the knob back on the robot. She sinks to her end of the cramped room, wrapping the blanket tight around her bulbous children, and holding the machine tight on her lap like K’Grawa holds the Mandalorian’s child.

K’Grawa embraces the uli’ah’s warm body to her, wondering again at its name, but the Mandalorian rarely speaks unless spoken to. The only exception has been today, to the frog woman, who could not speak back until she performed her witchcraft on the robot. She pulled out its guts and veins with her hands and reconnected them, and they worked. K’Grawa has never seen the colonizers’ sorcery in action before.

She eyes the machine. If she speaks, she can ask the woman how she did it. She could scout the enemy, learn their ways, and bring that knowledge back to her tribe. They would know where to strike to undo the things the settlers have done. And a vow of silence? It’s foolish. She took it not out of respect for Gr’ruthak, but out of fear of her own voice. She was not born under the cowardly sun!

K’Grawa abruptly stands and crosses the room. She grabs the microphone without fear, and growls, “How did you—?” The machine repeats it out in Basic, and she jumps at the tinny voice. She frowns, unsettled, and turns her gaze on the frog lady who stares in shock. “How did you make it talk?” The woman’s face looks stupid and confused. K’Grawa gestures to the robot. “The witchcraft! How can you speak your intentions and make it known to the other?”

It’s clear the woman understands the Basic the robot is spewing. She lights up and approaches—wary—and takes the end piece from K’Grawa.

“It is not witchcraft,” she says. “It is—” She pauses. She thinks. “Science,” she finally settles on.

K’Grawa snatches it from her hand. “What is science?”

She thrusts it back for an answer, and the frog woman falters. She takes it, making that confused face, and K’Grawa huffs. Does she not know of the very things she speaks of? How can she be ignorant of what the witchcraft—the science?—is, while performing it? She eventually says, “It is the study of the world. It is learning how things work, and then making them work in new ways.” When K’Grawa stares, the frog woman frowns again. “It is—The robot works because when it was not broken, it could speak Basic. I took its voice,” and she wags the knobbed end, “so it can speak for me.”

_Witchcraft_. K’Grawa grabs her throat, imagining someone taking her voice and speaking through it. It doesn’t make sense how she did it, but the frog lady was confident that it was this “science” and not witchcraft, so it must be two separate things. Does the Mandalorian understand it as science? And if he does, then he still classifies the sorcery the child and she uses as just that—sorcery.

K’Grawa wrests the voice from the frog woman’s hand. “Teach me how you stole its voice.”

Now that they’re talking, the woman doesn’t seem so afraid. K’Grawa resents that. The woman takes the time to shuffle her machine of egg children between her feet and under her skirt to insulate them. Then she shows K’Grawa the insides of the machine, and it helps that it’s vaguely humanoid shaped.

“This is the vocabulator,” she tells her. She points with her fleshy finger. “It connects here, in the neck. The vocabulator lets it speak. I had to connect it here,” and she points down, “so I could bypass where the wires were cut. If you twist the wires together here, it connects it back to the main power source, and it lets you use its voice to speak.”

K’Grawa nods. She doesn’t understand why it works, but she knows how it works. Disrupting the wires will kill the power. Wait—“The main power source? What is it? Where is it?”

The stupid woman opens the chest and shows her exactly what she’s looking for. “Here,” she says. “It . . . It’s hard to explain what it is. It’s electricity.” K’Grawa motions impatiently for her to explain, and the frog woman brightens. “I know! You’ve seen the dry thunderstorms, where the rain falls but doesn’t reach the ground, and the lightning in the storm?” K’Grawa nods. The frog lady gestures triumphantly to the machine. “It is powered by lightning!”

Impossible. Shocked, she lifts her hands to speak, and belatedly realizes she needs the voice box to do it. She yanks it back from the woman, snarling, “Impossible. You cannot control the lightning.”

The frog lady flinches before nodding. She gestures her to watch, and pulls two of the wires, red and black, from the machine. She shows where they’re connected to the power source, and she twists the frayed wires into points. Then she taps the ends together.

K’Grawa jumps when sparks, like tiny bursts of lightning, spit from the wires. How is it possible? How can they control the storms? It can’t be science, it must be witchcraft. The frog woman takes the voice from her limp hand and says, “We can make lightning. It’s how our lights work,” and she gestures to the ceiling. “It’s how the ship moves, with electricity and fuel and fire. Almost everything we use is powered by electricity.”

Electricity—K’Grawa turns the new word over in her mind. Controlled lightning is electricity, and the colonizers have tamed the un-tamable storms. They have done it through . . . science. It powers their ships. She thinks of the many vaporators she has destroyed in her lifetime and the way they sparked with lightning. The answer was in front of her eyes the entire time. How did they tame the lightning?

She feels tired and overwhelmed. K’Grawa sinks to the floor with the dozing child, frustrated that she doesn’t understand how these things are possible. Gnarr cuddles with her immediately, and she resents the cold that bites into her bones. She wonders what Gr’ruthak would think of her if he were here.

***

She spends a long time arguing with the frog woman about exploring in the cold. It is dangerous to go alone, and K’Grawa cannot go with her. She has to stay to keep the Mandalorian’s child warm when he is trying to get them out of the cold. The little box he placed that emits heat is not enough. This frozen water world is so cold that the box does not put out enough heat to cut it. The frog woman’s contraption is blinking with a red light, and she says her children will die if they do not get warm.

She resolves to look for a way to save them. K’Grawa begins to waste breath trying to stop her, and then she doesn’t. She is a settler. She can die in the cold if she wants. K’Grawa huddles with Gnarr and the child in front of the little heater, content to let her die.

But she has children. To what lengths would she go to keep her own children alive? K’Grawa shivers. Her sons passed in bloody clots, falling apart before they could come together to be born. Her daughter never drew the breath of life. She held the still, cold body to her breast the way she holds the Mandalorian’s child now, and her heart aches. She hunches over the warm, breathing child in her arms and shakes, unwilling to weep over the things she has already buried.

It takes some time to gather herself, but she creeps out of the ship. The frog woman will be easy to track as the snow has left visible footprints to follow. The Mandalorian’s footprints are larger, the print ribbed from the bottom of his boots. She follows them around the side of the ship to where she can hear something buzzing.

She rounds the corner and finds him crouched by an opening in the metal, fire sparking from the machine he holds. He stops and looks at her when she approaches.

“Where’s the kid?” are the first words out of his mouth.

She lifts her shroud, and the child squirms with a wordless babble when the cold air hits him. She replaces the covering around him and signs, _She left._

The Mandalorian leaves his tools. He approaches and holds his hands out for the uli’ah, and she unwillingly hands it over. She can see the way its ears quiver in the cold, but it curls up in his arms with a happy coo. “How long ago?” he asks her.

 _Not long,_ she signs. She leads him around the edge of the ship and shows him the footprints. He sighs, and he sounds tired, like a warrior who has battled all day only to find out a bantha has wandered into the sands. He begins to walk off, and K’Grawa frowns. She runs around the front of him and gestures for him to give the kid back.

“He’s coming with me.”

He moves to step around her, and she spreads her arms in front of him. He huffs, and she signs, _No. It’s is cold. The child has no wrappings to protect its feet, its hands, its head. Heat escapes. You must keep it warm._ She holds her arms out to him again.

The Mandalorian shifts, and she sees the way his head tilts down. It’s both a challenge and a territorial show as his arm holds the green baby tighter. “Wherever I go, he goes.”

K’Grawa snarls in silence. Men! They know nothing of child raising! _Heat escapes from head!_ she signs, hands harsh and clear. She snags the Mandalorian’s cape—he jolts like she’s attacking him—and puts it over the child’s head, making sure to tuck its big ears. She waves her hands again, shouting, _Let it freeze for all I care!_ and she stomps off toward the ship.

“I won’t be gone long,” the Mandalorian snaps, and he stalks in the other direction. K’Grawa goes inside and plops next to Gnarr, grumbling and inching closer to the heat box. Stupid woman! Stupid man! Going off into the cold! There will be nothing but more cold out there!

***

She’s never seen so many spiders. She’s never seen such a BIG spider. Gnarr is snacking on the ones that got into the cockpit. She goes outside to help push the legs off the ship, and the things weigh a ton.

K’Grawa considers the carcass. She stamps her foot on the hull, and the Mandalorian looks up from his soldering.

She signs, _Do you think it’s edible?_ and he chucks a ball of snow at her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I loved the frog lady and really wanted her and K'Grawa to get along, even though K'Grawa is belligerent and not polite at all. Now that I've thrown her in the deep and told her to swim and figure the world out as best as she can, I'm ready to REALLY get her and Din interacting more and bouncing off one another. ^-^


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!! This chapter has some pretty vivid violence in it. Wanted to give y'all a head's up.
> 
> I've taken liberties with Tatooine's sky, cause I know it's technically blue since we filmed on Earth, but I've always thought a wholeass desert planet under two suns prone to dust and sandstorms should have an oranger sky.
> 
> I'm writing very slow for my pace, but it's kind of nice, especially since I don't know how close to canon I may or may not keep yet. For certain I've been VIBRATING with excitement ever since I saw the goddamn beskar spear, hoo baby. Also, recently nervous about the idea of ever having to write Ahsoka Tano, how can I ever do my queen justice?
> 
> For now, we land on the estuary moon of Trask!

**“Careful when you’re swimming in the holy waters**   
**Drowning in your own beliefs”**

_**Deliverance __ CHVRCHES** _

  
K’Grawa has not has good experiences with any machinery. Especially with flying. She has crashed on a speeder. She has crashed in a ship. She marvels briefly at the round, krayt pearl-like quality of the planet below before the Mandalorian announces a few things she’s not sure she understands. What she knows is they’re careening to death while she holds onto a baby and a canister of babies, the cold ship is suddenly burning, there’s fire, the place is rattling like it’s going to break apart, and Gnarr is barking and skittering at her feet, spines fully lifted.

She’s certain they’re going to crash when she catches a glimpse of the planet’s surface—it’s . . .

Water?

And then, the thrusters kick in and the ship lurches, and K’Grawa is flung back into her seat with a grunt. The horizon levels out in the windshield. The expands of a city stretches before her, and the Mandalorian huffs with great effort.

“There we go,” he says. “Nice and easy.”

Something explodes. K’Grawa shrieks when the straps of the seat catch her as the entire ship tilts and pitches into—

WATER.

They sink to the ocean bed, and K’Grawa stares at the murky bubbles in front of her. Her mouth sags open.

“I’ve never seen so much water,” she breathes, and she’s not aware she’s even said it until the Mandalorian’s helm cants toward her. She puts the woman’s brood of eggs on the ground and frantically unbuckles. She stands and reaches out to the windshield, placing her hand flat on the glass that holds it back.

It moves and breathes like a living creature. K’Grawa knows the stories of the Dune Sea, and how long ago, before their race was cast down and the Builders ravaged them, the planet was green and full of life-giving water. The name of their sea has long been lost to time, much like the water was lost, and only sand remains. In the stories, they always said that the dunes resembled the ocean, because the waters would roll in arcs like the dunes.

She leans over the dashboard, and the Mandalorian says, “Careful—” because she’s bracing too close to his buttons and levers. K’Grawa looks up, and beyond the crane attaching under the ship to haul them out, she sees it: the surface. It rushes, white and frothy like Gnarr’s mouth after a hard hunt.

Under the wonder of beholding a real and true sea for the first time, a knot of anger curdles in her stomach. So much water. There’s so much, and yet they would poach from the Sand People?

The cables snap taunt, and K’Grawa staggers with the uli’ah. The ship begins to rise, and she collapses into her seat. They lift from the sea, waterfalls pouring over the surface of the ship in a blurry run until the windshield clears.

K’Grawa’s breath catches. The ocean looms ahead like the Dune Sea, vast and boundless, stretching beyond even the horizon. And now she sees what the tales have always told: the ocean surges. The waves charge like banthas sensing the fresh smell of water from the Gafsa Well, frothing, splashing, spraying. The waves are like the sands, rolling endlessly. They move like the dunes, but not in a slow, indiscernible drift—the waves lunge and break, shifting faster than she’s seen any landscape move.

The water is alive. It is beautiful and overwhelming. K’Grawa’s breath heaves, and she knows the other passengers cannot see the tears on her cheeks, but she hopes they cannot tell by her breath that she cries in the wake of such a miracle of life.

The cables drop them, and K’Grawa lurches when they crash to the surface of the planet. She rushes to give the Mandalorian his child, and she signs, _I don’t understand. What is that color?_

The Sand People have many words for brown. There is a word for the bright brown of the sand, the dark brown of wet earth, the hard brown of the rocks, and the rough, warm brown of their banthas. She has a lexicon of words for brown, for the glare of bleach white bones, for the orange-tinged day sky and for the black, fathomless night sky. They even have words for green, for the velvet green of insulated plants and the spiky green of cacti.

But this? It is not green. It is richer. It is not like black, so dark and impenetrable. She’s never seen this color.

The Mandalorian stands with his son. He says, “It’s blue,” and his words are so close to her she can feel the metallic tinge of them vibrate her headdress.

_Blue._ She loves the color blue.

They go together down the incline of the ship’s ramp, leaving Gnarr inside, and K’Grawa is hit by wind that feels thick and cool. The air is heavy somehow and . . . damp. Yes, it’s damp, and she can smell the coming rain with a rush of endorphins that combats the jealousy. The sky is covered with life-giving thunderstorm clouds. Water sluices off the smooth metal of the Mandalorian’s ship, and she reaches her hand out, letting it trickle onto her palm. It soaks through her glove, and she looks back at the beckoning sea.

She pulls out her water canteen, and she rushes to the edge of the dock. She kneels at the edge, intending on taking this water for herself when the Mandalorian says, “Leave it.” She jolts, looking up at him. He half shrugs, half throws his arm out to the ocean. “It’s salty. You can’t drink it.”

Salty? K’Grawa hesitates, and she turns her back to him, slipping her hand beneath her mask. She sucks on her glove and winces in shock. It IS salt! The righteous anger returns. So this is why the outlanders poach the Sand People’s water. They do not have fresh, life-giving waters; they have only corrupt, salty waters and frozen waters that do not yield.

The suns and moons of Tatooine gave the Sand People the gift of water, and it is a gift the whole galaxy scrambles to take. K’Grawa flushes with pride and the lust for battle. She stands tall and approaches the Mandalorian and his uli’ah, cemented in her quest for power to help her people conquer and take back what is rightfully theirs.

Yet, she looks back on the ocean. She has gone farther than any Tusken has ever gone. She has already seen more than any Tusken has dared to see. She has already learned more than they have ever known. She wants to bring this tale back to them, and yet she has no idea how she will ever describe it for the Storyteller in a way they will understand. It feels staggering to try to encompass the sea into words.

_It is beautiful,_ she signs for the Mandalorian. _I never knew there was so much water in the world—_

Her hands still when she hears the frog woman squeal. Her gaze drifts past the Mandalorian, and she sees her running towards another frog-like person. It must be her husband.

Her heart spasms like she’s taken a gaderffi to her gut. Her hands fall wordless as the woman reunites with her husband, and she thinks of Gr’ruthak, steady and unafraid of her in life. If she completes her quest and can bring the power of her controlled sorcery back to her tribe, she will not have such a reunion. She will come back to burial stones and a hollow cot.

The Mandalorian waits for her to say more, and when she does not, begins to walk toward the couple, his son’s cradle somehow floating and following. K’Grawa strafes behind him, sick on grief and envy. She is the Mandalorian’s second shadow, ghosting behind him as though the coward sun has followed her to another planet. She puts her footsteps in his footsteps and follows him to a place that serves slop. She follows him back to the docks. She follows him following others.

Her feet stop at the edge of the pier where the Mandalorian boards a metal boat. She hesitates. How does the metal not sink, like his metal flying ship sank? She surveys the edge of it with indecision, unsure if she should be on the water.

The Mandalorian sighs at the top of the gangplank, and he asks her, “Are you coming or not?”

He is always tired. Maybe he does not sleep well. If they were on Tatooine, with the wiry sprouts she knows, she could make him a stiff drink to make him sleep soundly. For now, she hikes her chin defiantly and stalks up the ramp and onto the metal ship. It rocks and sways beneath her, not like the slick sand of home, but like something buoyant, like the breath of a sarlacc under her feet. K’Grawa trembles but hides it, determined not to seem weak or cumbersome to the Mandalorian. Here, she is the only representative of her people. She will not let them think all Tuskens are born under the cowardly sun.

They lurch from the port, and K’Grawa resets her footing. The ocean waves surge beneath the metal ship and make it rock. It feels sacrilegious somehow to ride the living waters. The creatures with the sarlacc faces man the boat, casting them off into the deep. K’Grawa’s skin crawls when the shoreline recedes. She looks down at the waters, respecting them, but unsettled by the aliens.

The Mandalorian is not fazed. His child looks around with excitement at being on the sea. K’Grawa wonders how long the travel will be until they find his people.

“Have you ever seen a mamacore eat?”

K’Grawa looks up. A creature? The Mandalorian is disinterested in the local fauna, but K’Grawa is not.

“Child might take an interest,” Sarlacc Face says. “You should take a look! Come on over here. Get a good view. Let the kid see.”

The Mandalorian is bored and dismissive, but obediently comes to the edge of the grate to look down. K’Grawa does too, hoping she doesn’t look as eager as she is. A large creature? She wants to know if it would be worthy of hunting. She had not considered bringing tales of successful hunts back home to her people. Her gaze lingers on the Mandalorian’s shiny pauldron, where a beast with a great horn is etched. She wonders what the story is behind it, and if he would speak to her if she asked.

They bring a net over the grate that rolls back. K’Grawa watches them bait the creature up by dropping a sackful of fish into the water, and she wonders how big it is. Beasts that live in the waters. Won’t the tribe be surprised! She watches the bubbling water with great interest.

“She must be hungry,” Sarlacc Face says. “Oftentimes we’ll feed her in the early morning, but we missed that because we were going out of PORT!”

Metal strikes metal, the Mandalorian shouts, “No!” and K’Grawa jumps when the child’s cradle flies out into the water. The bubbles surge, and then she sees the creature lunge up, full of teeth and mandibles and tentacles as it swallows the man’s uli’ah whole. K’Grawa starts in fear.

_Water sarlacc!_

The Mandalorian jumps in after his child, and K’Grawa grabs her gaderffi while the sarlacc people shout, “Lock it up!” The grate slides shut, trapping him below the waters.

K’Grawa turns on the nearest one. Trickster! Liar! She bellows in anger and lunges with her gaderffi, and the flanges tear into the man’s shoulder. He screams at a piercing pitch, and dark blood splashes to the slick metal ship. K’Grawa rips the point of it out, and he tries to get his speared hook up to counter her, but he is weak and gutless. He fights with cowardice, not with courage! K’Grawa knocks his weapon aside and kicks out at his knee. It breaks with grisly snap. The man squeals and pitches to the deck. She jabs downward, goring him open so his intestines will feed the monster in the deep.

Three have rushed up to the grate where the Mandalorian can’t escape the waters. They poke and prod him like a bantha as they try to make him sink. She turns to help him, but she’s cut off by two enemies. She snarls, bellows the cry of the Sand People, and rushes in.

Their spears clash against her gaderffi. K’Grawa rages, hoping the Mandalorian can take care of himself until she can get to him. The sarlacc faces push her across the deck of the ship, and K’Grawa swings wide with her gaderffi. The blunt end of the weapon cracks into one of their elbows, snapping the bone. Another foe slices with a curved spear. K’Grawa jumps back, and her back hits the edge of the deck. She can hear the Mandalorian coughing, and the sarlacc faces stab down at him. Adrenaline floods her mind.

They’re too outnumbered. His child has been consumed. The creature still lurks in the water, and he will be next. K’Grawa bellows in fury and rushes in recklessly. She did not come so far only for her story to end here!

The spike of her gaderffi slashes across the face of one sarlacc man, slicing one of his tentacles off. He howls and backs up enough for her to bull rush the one with the broken arm. Without both hands, he cannot lift his weapon fast enough. She jabs, and her gaderffi sinks into his soft belly flesh. Dark red blood pours down his clothing, and he collapses. Another alien rushes in.

K’Grawa brays in fury when she’s double teamed again. The others rush her, battering her gaffi stick with fast and furious blows. She wards them off with wide swipes when boots land behind her. An arm wraps around her neck, and K’Grawa howls. She kicks, thrashes, and something slices into her arm like hot butter. One of them manages to grab her gaderffi and rip it from her. The big one behind her is lifting her off her feet, and K’Grawa reaches back with her hands and claws at his face like a cornered anooba. Her fingers sink into his eyes, and she hooks her thumbs in the sockets.

The sarlacc man hauls her up and throws her overboard. K’Grawa yells in fury as she plows through the surface. Water soaks her. It fills her ears and muffles the noise of the world. It stings her eyes beneath her mask and makes it hard to see. She feels both heavy and weightless, straining to keep her eyes open. Her open wound BURNS.

She can’t touch anything. She gasps in fear as she begins to sink, arms and legs flailing and then—her lungs burn. She chokes on the water, and she coughs, expelling the water and sucking in more water. Pain billows in her chest, and she can’t escape the water, she can’t get up, she can’t get out, the corrupt water is stealing her life away, and no matter how much she screams, no one hears her. Bubbles of air cascade to the surface as the darkness presses in. It wasn’t the sarlacc faces who will end her, it’s here, beneath the salt and the weight of the sea pushing her down until she breaks.

She convulses beneath the waves until hands grab her. A force jettisons her in the opposite direction, and suddenly, she breaches the surface. K’Grawa gasps for air, and her lungs bubble with water. The person dumps her on the boat, and K’Grawa hits her hands and knees, vomiting water into her mask. Her shoulders shake, and she chokes for air, to cleanse her body of the defiled salt waters.

When she has enough oxygen that she can function again, she first looks for her gaderffi. The weapon lies next to her, so she grabs it. Even when she’s sure she’s expelled all the water from inside her, she’s still coughing, like her body can’t stop.

She looks up, and she sees their rescuers—Mandalorians, like the silver Mandalorian, only they are in blue, like the sea. One is handing the child—unhurt!—to the Mandalorian she has traveled with. His hands are shaking, and he is soaking wet, like she is. Her body wracks with another shudder, because the wind of the ocean is cold now that she is wet from head to toe. Blood oozes down her arm, soaking her clothing. The cut is shallow but stings wildly.

She looks for the sarlacc people, and they are scattered about the deck, dead. K’Grawa stands on wobbly legs, sucking for air and tasting salt on her mouth. The Sea Mandalorians stand tall and unified, but there are still two sarlacc people who did not die from settler blaster fire—no, they died disemboweled, clutching their stomachs. Of eight, two are her kills. K’Grawa hikes her chin, proud of her feats in the wake of impossible odds. She will not let them see the fear curdling in her stomach.

“Thank you,” the Mandalorian says, and his voice is wet with water and relief. “I’ve been searching for more of our kind.”

“Well, you’re lucky we found you first,” the middle one says. K’Grawa lists closer to the Mandalorian’s shoulder. That is their leader. She will defer to hers. They are his people. K’Grawa puts away her gaderffi, and she wrings the water from her heavy skirts.

“I’ve been quested to deliver this child. I was hoping that—”

He stops short when the others take off their helmets. They are three humans, one a dark female, the other two pale, and the leader with bright red hair. K’Grawa senses a palatable shift in the Mandalorian, a tension in the air as he stands, seething between his teeth, “Where did you get that armor?”

She reaches back and fists her gaderffi stick. She shifts behind him, wary, and the woman says, “This armor has been in my family for three generations.”

“You do not cover your face. You are not Mandalorian.”

The two behind the Sea Mandalorian leader swear. “He’s one of them.”

His hand clenches, and K’Grawa has caught her breath. She shifts, ready for a brawl.

“One of what?”

The red haired Sea Leader looks searchingly at him. It almost looks like concern. “I am Bo Katan of clan Kryze,” she says, and K’Grawa has never heard a more ridiculous name. Katan takes a step forward, asserting herself, and K’Grawa looks at the silver Mandalorian for direction. “I was born on Mandalore and fought in the Purge. I am the last of my line.”

Her fighting hands slack. K’Grawa is the last of her line, too. This Bo Katan is a woman with no progeny. Perhaps she too struggles for her family and their survival.

“And you,” she says softly, “are a child of the Watch.”

The Mandalorian is still. It is an unnatural stillness—not of intent, like an anooba preparing to spring. He is still like those practicing to be Storytellers, the way they ruminate hard on their thoughts. “The Watch?”

“Children of the Watch are a cult of religious zealots that broke away from Mandalorian society,” Katan says. “Their goal is to reestablish the ancient Way.”

“There is only one Way,” he says back. He sounds hoarse. K’Grawa wonders if it is from coughing, or from what the woman has said. “The Way of the Mandalore.”

He turns with his child, and he walks to the edge of the ship. The conversation has finished, whatever it means. K’Grawa follows, and then, fire erupts from the pack on his back. She jumps with a muffled gasp when he leaves the ship, flying off with his uli’ah and leaving her with the Sea Mandalorians.

She watches him go for one long moment, heart beating fast in her chest. Is he abandoning her to them? Anger suffuses her throat. She fought for him. She killed for him! He can’t leave her to these other Sea Mandalorians when he accepted her as his charge. He said he would take her to the sorcerers, like he is taking his child. The frog woman accused him of having no honor, of not keeping his word, and K’Grawa shakes with the fury of its truth.

The sky has broken. The clouds have cleared. K’Grawa looks to the suns for guidance but finds only one staring back at her, distant and foreign.

The pale human male mutters, “Never seen a Tusken Raider off Tatooine . . .”

K’Grawa looks to the Sea Mandalorians she has been abandoned with. Katan studies her with interest, but only asks, “You are traveling with him?” K’Grawa nods. “We will take you back to him.” She looks to her warriors. “Set the charges.”

***

She has to hold onto the male for his back fire pack to carry her to shore. She resents it, but she fears trying to swim in the choppy water. They dump her on the wharf, and K’Grawa signs a curt, Thank you, despite none of them seeming to understand. The Sea Mandalorians watch her go, and K’Grawa wishes she could ask them where the sorcerers are since the Mandalorian did not.

K’Grawa is in a strange area, on a strange planet, but she is an excellent scout and tracker. She knows the way back to the Mandalorian’s ship, so she sets out under an evening sun to find him. The only extra time she takes is to bandage her bleeding arm with a strip of cloth. She walks fast, gaderffi and rifle on her back, ignoring the antagonistic looks shot her way. If anyone dares to stop her, she will gut them like she did the others. They will learn not to look down upon her, but to fear her.

The Mandalorian is not traveling as fast as she is. She catches up to him on the docks, and she grabs his pauldron, hauling him around to face her. His hand flies to his blaster, and he half draws it before he realizes it’s her.

She signs with curt, vigorous movements to assert her anger when she says, _You do NOT leave me! You told my people you would take me as you take your child to the sorcerers! I fought for you and yours! I killed for you and yours! And you repay me by abandoning me? If you were going to leave me, then you should have left me to die in the dunes of Tatooine!_

He shifts guiltily. She sees the set of his shoulders cow in the wake of her anger, and it feels good to strike out at him. She doesn’t know why. She is frustrated with him for more than abandoning her. She wonders if he is even alive under his metal skin, or if he is merely a droid full of wires and a voice she can steal.

She expects him to be angry, but he is not. He’s tired when he says, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

_No brains!_ she signs. She’s blunt, but her fury already ebbs in the wake of his acceptance. _You find your kind and you do not follow through on your mission! You leave! What is the Watch? Why do you run from your story?_

He blasts a breath of air through his helmet, and K’Grawa hears it. The heave of his chest is full of the breath of life. It is the only assurance she has that he truly is alive and not a machine. “I won’t go where you can’t follow,” is what he promises her, and K’Grawa grumbles. He avoids the question!

_I don’t understand,_ she signs. Her hands are terse and petulant. _Everything is new. Everything is strange. What—?_ She stops. She doesn’t have a word for “science” in her tongue or in her hands. She doesn’t have a word for what happened to her in the sea. _What happened to me?_

He cants his head in silent question, and she growls. She throws her arms out. _In the sea! I could not breathe! The water was everywhere. It was in my eyes and ears. It filled up my body. It filled up my lungs like the disease of banthas._ Puba’s wet sucking breaths haunt her ears. K’Grawa shrugs helplessly. _The waters at home are life giving, but the salt waters here are life taking. It was stealing my life._

A long beat of silence sits between them. Under the disappearing sun, the Mandalorian’s shiny armor is burnished bronze, softening him into an earthy tone more familiar to her. She is standing too close to him. She takes a step back, astonished at her urgency.

Finally, he says, “The word is drowning. You were drowning.”

Wet air sucks through her mask’s filter. She invents a gesture, indicating being buried alive under quicksand but changing it to the signal for water. “Drowning,” she says, faltering over the noises of his settler’s Basic. If he’s surprised she can form the words when Sand People never use the language of the colonizers, his helmet covers the expression.

K’Grawa looks down on the uli’ah in his arms. The baby is alert with large eyes and ears cocked up to the sound of her voice. She signs, _Is he all right?_ She reaches out to rub his soft, flexible ears, and he coos at her.

He sighs, and K’Grawa hears the haggard relief in the breath. “Yes,” he says, and the word hangs between them, full of residual fear, palliative, and honest. For the first time, he offers the child to her of his own volition. He says, “Thank you for fighting for us. I’m glad you are protecting him.”

Emotion clots in K’Grawa’s throat. She fought for him and his, and it was more than she could do for her own children. Yet, it wasn’t enough to protect them. She didn’t keep a close enough eye on his child. She will remedy that from now on.

She chooses not to accept the child. He is comforted in the arms of his father. Instead, she steps back and signs, _Before, I had nothing to fight for. Now I do. If it is within my power, I will not allow harm to fall upon your child._

“Thank you.”

She slams her fist to her chest and performs a snappy bow of deference to him. She is glad that he understands her devotion to the child. She is glad she has seen some semblance of warmth in him beneath his armor. She is comforted in the knowledge that in the end, this man is a father and a kindred spirit.

He dove in, reckless after his child. She knows the feeling of being willing to do anything for your children.

***

They don’t go far in the night before the Sea Mandalorians catch up to them. K’Grawa feels foolish. She led them right to him. However, given the sarlacc people intended on striking back, the numbers of his cousins he disapproves of are welcome. By the time K’Grawa has her rifle in her hands, they’ve already shot every sarlacc face in the vicinity.

She watches them holster their short-nosed blasters. She thinks of the blaster she took from the man on Tatooine. It is under her skirts as a secondary precaution, like the frog woman kept hers under her skirt, hidden, until needed. She thinks perhaps she needs to carry it in the open on her hip, like the Mandalorians do.

The Sea Mandalorians propose a trade: they want help with a raid for weapons in exchange for the information on the sorcerers. Nothing in this life comes for free unless it is stolen. The raid is acceptable in K’Grawa’s eyes as her life’s blood hinged on the violence of raids against the settlers. That’s how the Sand People earned their new name: Tusken Raiders.

And the Mandalorian is counting her among them. He says, “If you wanna do this with five, you’re gonna need the element of surprise.” K’Grawa is pleased she has proven her might to him.

But Katan says, “Four, but, exactly right.” K’Grawa looks sharply at the woman from behind the Mandalorian. He has indicated she will come with them. She signs, I am coming too, but Katan details a plan about getting on the ship with words K’Grawa does not fully understand. She is dismissive of her, and K’Grawa boils in anger.

The Mandalorian asks, “Troopers?”

Katan is smug. “Squad at most.”

“And they couldn’t hit the side of a bantha,” the male Sea Mandalorian says.

K’Grawa unleashes a harsh bark of warning and yanks her gaderffi off her back. The man’s hand jumps to his weapon, but his dark friend just smirks with unconcealed humor. The Mandalorian puts his arm in front of her, and he stresses, “Don’t.” His tone is soft and level. She is impressed that he can convey threat with such a gentle tone, but she doesn’t want to listen. She wants to gut the offworlder for his cruel words. The sacred bantha are not for target practice! K’Grawa vibrates with anger, the point of her gaderffi shaking, but she acquiesces to his leadership. She is among his people. If they are dead, they cannot give them the information they seek. It is that simple.

When she begrudgingly puts away her weapon, the Mandalorian says, “Come here.” He brushes by, and K’Grawa coils her body tight with aggression. She shoots the Sea Mandalorian male a look that could kill, but he does not seem worried about it. She snarls under her breath and follows the Mandalorian off the top of his ship and inside.

Gnarr trots to them, holding the baby by the scruff of his rucksack. The Mandalorian scoops up his uli’ah and offers him to K’Grawa. Uncertain, she accepts the child, tucking his warm body to her chest. “I’m gonna need you to look after him,” the Mandalorian says.

She understands what he means immediately. She puts the child up on her shoulders, and he coos when she holds him piggyback. She signs, _No! I can fight. I will help you and your kind._

“You’re already hurt—”

_It is a flesh wound._

He huffs, annoyed she is fighting with him. “That ship is going to take off tomorrow morning. You have to have a jetpack to get on it.”

_Give me one._

“I don’t have another one.”

K’Grawa grits a noise through her teeth. He is being trifling! His child smacks his hands on top of her head like a drum. She signs, _Then carry me! They have already done that!_

“We won’t make the altitude we need to get up there,” he says again. When she furiously signs, What? he elaborates, “Altitude. We can’t get high enough in the air with both of our weight on it.”

She thinks of the male who carried her back to the docks, the way his jetpack screamed and wailed and their feet skimmed the water’s surface. She’s mad he’s right. She won’t be able to go on this raid with him. Her hands clench, and she feels a sense of helplessness she’s not used to.

His curt tone finally gentles. “Someone needs to look after the kid.”

K’Grawa reaches up to the playing child. She brings him down into her arms again, bracing him on her hip. _Fine,_ she signs. She gestures to Gnarr sitting at her heels and then herself, and signs, _Protect._

The Mandalorian nods. “Thank you.” He looks around at his crumbling ship, and he says, “You can’t stay here tonight. You need—” His helm lifts with an idea. “I know where you can stay.”

There’s only one place on this planet other than the Razor Crest that they know. K’Grawa huffs and follows the Mandalorian to the frog people’s house, certain she’s not going to enjoy a restless night sitting out of the fray.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still having a difficult time writing, but I'm slowly but steadily pecking away. Someone once asked whether this was going to be in accordance with canon or divergent, and the answer is an unhelpful, resounding, "canon adjacent." Cause this is one of the few TV shows I like right now to the point where I don't feel the need to rehaul everything into a story I want to see. I'm very satisfied with the Mandalorian, and I'm interested to see where they're going to take it for season 3.
> 
> This was a rather nice, slow character building chapter where I finally get Din and K'Grawa interacting more heavily as they get used to one another. I just kinda love domestic shit, I don't know. ^-^

**“You can cry**   
**Drinking your eyes**   
**Do you miss the sadness when it's gone?**   
**And you let the river run wild”**

_**The River __ Aurora** _

K’Grawa and the child have an eventful night.

The frog woman’s eggs are hatching already. Tiny little creatures that are all head and tail, they wriggle from their shells and swim in the water. The uli’ah wants to touch them but K’Grawa holds him back. She doesn’t understand why the frog children are so small. They don’t even look like the parents.

They birth in the water. She’s fascinated with the concept and astounded that their life is so fragile.

The frog children are much like the Mandalorian’s child: they hunger. They eat and eat and eat, and they sleep in snatches. At first, it’s a full time job for the parents as they watch and croon over the tadpoles. K’Grawa eats in the other room and despairs at her damp clothing that will not dry out. The air on this planet is cool and wet. She is cold and wet.

She naps, and every time she opens her eyes, the tadpoles have already gotten larger. She wonders where the Mandalorian is and if his mission goes well.

Eventually, the parents scoop a bigger one out of the bin and into a bowl. Before, it did not look like the children breathed; now, she can see its little body puff for air, wriggling in excitement and rolling like a massiff in the sand.

These people whose names she does not know gesture her closer. They show her how to cup her hands. Then, to a stranger, they place their newborn in her hands. K’Grawa hunches over the tiny creature with fear.

She knows how to kill. She knows how to be rough, how to fight hard, and how to survive in an inhospitable wilderness. Even the newborns of the Sand People are tough.

This baby is fragile. More fragile than even the Mandalorian’s uli’ah. It is the size of the second son she miscarried, but unlike hers, this child kicks with life. She holds the squirming baby with great care, afraid to hurt it. She’s never tried to be gentle before, but she tries now.

***

She signs, _Wait,_ and Din stops.

After a night of staying up, the child is fussy. He gabs for his attention and tugs on his sleeve. Din’s tired, his body aching from the blaster fire his beskar absorbed for Clan Kryze. He wants nothing more than to nurse the no doubt black and blue welts on his body and ignore the many implications of what Bo Katan said. Instead, he stops and faces K’Grawa.

He hadn’t fully come to terms with what he agreed to before, taking her on. He’d been tired; kriff, he’d just been swallowed by a krayt dragon! The trials had been long, the Sand People are insistent when they stick to something, and if he’s honest, if she’s anything like the kid, she needs guidance with her powers.

But she’s a Sand Person. She knows nothing about the galaxy and how it works. He doesn’t think she even understands the light switches. It’s good to have another set of eyes on the ad’ika, and it’s good to have someone else to protect him, but kriff. This has already become more than what he signed up for.

But he did. So he stops, and he asks her, “What is it?”

 _I need canteens,_ she signs to him, and his brows cinch.

“What for?”

_The water._ She gestures to the ocean. _I want to take the ocean back to my people. I also need charcoal._

“Charcoal?” His body aches with dull pains, and so does his head.

_I am not a Storyteller,_ K’Grawa insists. _I need to show them what I have seen. I can draw on the walls for them._

“Not on my walls,” he grunts. “We’ll get you some paper.” K’Grawa cocks her head, and he sighs. Oral culture. “Portable walls,” is what he says, unable to think of a more elegant metaphor to explain.

 _I have the settler trade rocks._ He watches her reach into the leather pouch on her waist, and she pulls out a cloth bag. She hands it to him.

“Since when do Sand People keep credits?” He opens the bag. Hutt money. Peggats, truguts, and wupiupi. Altogether, a hefty amount of change to spend on the items she wants. Most importantly, because they can be melted down, that means they have universal value. It’s good spending money to have on the Outer Rim.

_Extra spoils,_ is how she explains them. _The shiny rocks keep the children happy. The tribe gave them to me since I was to go out among the colonizers._

The kid pulls on the bag, like he also wants to play with the money. Din hands the pouch back to her, and he says, “Well, come on then.”

She follows directly behind him with such a soft step that most of the time, he forgets she’s there. They go on a brief detour for a shopping trip, and he has to explain why he’s buying a set of plastic vials for her instead of water canteens—he can’t imagine the logistics of having a pile of water canteens in his already cramped storage space when she just wants a sample from each planet. He also has to show her how the notebook works and the concept of colored pencils, but that’s easy. She takes to it like . . . well, like a fish to water, and seems very excited about her new canvas.

K’Grawa is also very specific when she signs, _Blue. I want many blues._ So he helps her count out her money to get plenty of blues.

Once she’s satisfied, they head back to the Razor Crest. Din doesn’t think the day could get any worse, but when he sees his ship?

“Mon Calamari,” he curses under his breath.

***

During the next stretch of the trip, they settle into an odd pattern of living with one another.

K’Grawa slips into their life with surprising ease. She lives like a ghost in his ship. She’s extremely unobtrusive and silent. She defers to him in almost every aspect except the rare times she’s managed to critique how he’s taking care of the kid. Gnarr is an obedient massiff. She causes no trouble, and even gently plays with the child. He’s rather enchanted with the dog.

But K’Grawa. It feels odd to hand someone their dinner and know that she’s leaving not just because he won’t show his face, but because she also won’t show hers. That’s a familiarity of experience that he associates with Mandalorians, and it makes her easy to live with. It makes him miss the covert with a fierce ache.

There’s also a way she uses Gnarr as a warning that he never thought of. The dog will sit outside of the door when she eats, or if she’s indecent. In the mornings, she sends Gnarr out first, like an alert to let him know she’s coming, in case he’s indecent. Given he’s never had to live with anyone other than the kid before, and he fears her accidentally seeing his face, it’s a type of security he appreciates deeply. He doesn’t feel like he has to walk on glass in his own ship.

It’s the third day limping the Razor Crest toward Corvus when her silence breaks, suddenly and completely.

He’s knelt at the control panel, moving nets and soldering when she approaches and stamps her foot to get his attention. He stops and looks at her. She signs, _What are you doing?_

The Razor Crest is running rough. The Mon Calamari hardly fixed his waterlogged thrusters, and he’s set on smoothing this bumpy ride out. “I’m fixing the engines,” he says to her.

He turns back to his work for a single second before she taps her foot again. “What?” he asks. He’s not going to get anything done with her hovering.

_How?_

He stares at K’Grawa, because she’s standing expectantly before him. She’s not going to leave. The Sand People are stubborn. It’s both a virtue and a flaw.

And so begins a long day for Din. His work is slowed by K’Grawa asking “What is that?” and “How does it work?” and “Where is it’s power source?” and “How do you fix it? How do you break it?” She’s an endless well of questions. He explains the best he can, but she wants to know how the wires hold the lightning—”Electricity,” he corrects—and she wants to know how the stars turned blue and streaky. And how can you explain lightspeed and hyperspace lanes to a Sand Person?

He tells her, “We are moving at the speed of light,” and she signs, _I have seen the light move over the Dune Sea in the mornings. The light is slow._ And then he has to tell her the suns are shedding light, and she gets mad at him, saying she knows that, but he has to explain the time it takes the light to travel to her. No matter how far he explains the suns of Tatooine are, beyond even the moons they passed on their way out, she can’t grasp the concept.

He flicks the lights on and off, telling her, “The speed of light,” and she signs, _The speed of light is instant. Why aren’t we there yet?_ and he groans.

“We’re moving very fast,” he says, and his tone is frustrated enough that K’Grawa doesn’t pursue the point.

She’s not the only one watching him solder, rewire, and reroute power. The kid’s there too, watching with his big dark eyes and cooing by K’Grawa’s feet. Whenever Din goes to the cockpit to manage the control panel, she asks, “What does this switch do? What does this button do? What about that lever?” He’s sincerely close to losing his patience—the repairs are not going well on top of her incessant questions—but he takes a deep breath and controls it.

It’s not her fault. She doesn’t know. Besides, maybe if he teaches her enough, she might actually be of some use around the ship. Might be nice to have an extra set of hands to help with the repairs.

He shows her the immediate controls he’s working with to restart the engines, but tells her he’ll teach her the whole panel another day. He’s not entirely sure how much she’s actually committing to memory anyways, and learning to pilot the ship isn’t an easy task. Instead, he powers up the engines again, and his heart lifts hearing the successful, smooth roar of the thrusters kick in—

The ship lurches, rattles, and careens. He grabs the controls, swearing colorfully under his breath as hyperspace streaks like a kaleidescope of smears, and the Razor Crest’s engines scream at an alarming pitch before the whole ship lurches falls out of hyperspace. They slam to nearly a complete stop. The ship lists, the thrusters weak and the control panel beeping rapidly with a repair alarm.

Din huffs and falls back against the seat. “Great.”

K’Grawa looks out of the viewport, surveying the long expanse of space in front of them. She comes to the conclusion, _This is not the speed of light,_ and Din feels a ridiculous urge to laugh. _Your ship is screaming. It is in pain._

“Yes,” he sighs. He reaches over and turns the alarm off, taking stock of the many, many issues presenting themselves. Chiefly, the hyperdrive has failed. He guides the ship out of the hyperspace lane. He stands, walks to and kneels by the crawl space. He opens it up and feels the years drain off his life. He can’t catch a break, can he? You need a pit droid to get in there, or the right tool. Sometimes, mechanics will hand a couple credits to any kids helping around the—

Kids. Din looks back, finding that K’Grawa has followed him again like a second shadow, holding the child.

“I think I’ve got an idea,” he says.

***

He no longer has an idea.

***

They have to travel sublight to get to Nevarro. The planet is the closest safe haven they have. So they’re stuck in the ship together, playing with the kid, playing with Gnarr, and generally trying to keep out of each other’s way.

K’Grawa paces like a caged animal. She keeps asking, _When will we get there?_ and walks to the view port and back, circling for an exit. She modifies a thigh holster so it attaches to her waist. She hangs a blaster she must have poached from someone on her hip, and she practices drawing it fast for long hours.

She also draws the sea she saw on Trask. She’s a good artist. She spends hours on the drawing, and she shares her art supplies with the child. It frees Din up to take a nap while they fly through space, and he reminds himself to buy more since it’s helping keep the kid occupied.

The second time she speaks, he’s jolted out of his nap by her rough voice barking, “Mandalorian!” and he jolts, hand jumping to his blaster. His spiking heart rate settles seeing no danger, but he almost wants her to warn him when she actually intends on using her voice. Her decision to use sign language over speaking is baffling, but cements her quietly in the ship.

Her hands are holding the child’s, and the kid’s babbling in frustration, trying to pull away from her. Din sits up. “What’s going on?”

She stubbornly clutches the adi’ka’s hands for a long moment, and then, she releases them. She swiftly scooches the colored pencils to the kid and signs, _He was using the witchcraft._

Din stares at her, not sure he’s heard her right. He looks at the pencils, then the child, and then K’Grawa. “You mean he was making the pencils float?” She nods sharply. She’s sitting on her knees, hands hovering in her lap, poised to grab the kid’s hands again if she has to. She’s terrified of the magic. Din makes a show of slouching comfortably so she can see he’s unconcerned and says, “That’s fine. He does that sometimes.”

K’Grawa reaches, pulls back, and he watches the way her hands hesitate, starting and faltering with words before she manages to sign, _I don’t understand. The witchcraft is evil. He should not use it._

“Just because we don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s evil,” he says. K’Grawa sits up straight, hiking her chin defiantly. He falters, remembering what she said: _It consumes. It drains. It throws. People fly. Bones break. Necks snap. Life dies. The earth eats._ He draws a measured breath, considering her experiences with it. “You said sometimes it builds up in you until you can’t control it, right?” She nods. He gestures to the kid.

“He doesn’t do that,” he tells her. “Every time he uses the magic, he’s doing it on purpose. There aren’t accidents with him. He likes to use it to get things I put out of his reach, and he’s used it to heal people.”

Her attention is so heavy on him he can feel the weight of her eyes behind her headdress. Her chest heaves with a breath, and she signs, _He heals?_

Din nods. “Yes. He’s in control of all the sorcery he uses. I don’t know why it’s difficult to control for you. If it builds up because you’re ignoring it, maybe you should take his lead.” He gestures to the kid who’s paused in his drawing to look between the two of them. “Maybe you should practice using it, so you can control it.”

K’Grawa turns away and cradles both hands in to her chest. Din regards her from behind his mask, trying to untangle what’s going on in her head. She’s afraid to use her witchcraft—likely because of the culture of the Sand People itself—but it can’t just be that. She’s hurt people. Din rubs his gloved fingers together, contemplating where she’s come from the unpredictability of her magic. He wonders how easily she could kill him if she so chose when she’s injured on mere accident. He draws in a sharp breath.

“Who did you hurt?”

She flinches. She reaches up to her throat, squeezing there like she can strangle herself. The kid coos softly, putting his pencils down. He’s always been sensitive to the emotions in the room.

K’Grawa doesn’t answer for so long that he thinks she won’t. He’s going to change the direction of his questions when she slowly lifts her hands and signs, _It is not who I hurt. It is who I killed._

A pulse of emotion sticks in Din’s throat, somewhere between sympathy and a foreboding jitter. The kid toddles over to her and pats her thigh. She rubs his back, avoiding Din’s gaze.

“So can you also make the pencils move?” he asks instead.

Her head yanks up. _You want me to use the witchcraft on purpose?_

He shrugs. “Better than using it on accident.”

K’Grawa puts her hands in her lap, wringing them with indecision. Gnarr snuffles in her sleep, paws kicking. The kid gives uppy arms to K’Grawa, and she picks him up. Then, she stands, crosses the room, and puts the kid in his lap. Din holds him despite his complaining, and K’Grawa positions herself across the the room again.

_This is a bad idea,_ she signs.

Din crosses both arms in front of the kid so he disappears behind a wall of protection. “If you start throwing pencils,” he says, and he can’t help the amusement sneaking into his voice, “I think the beskar will be more than enough to protect us.” He taps his armor to illustrate this.

She growls like her massiff does. _This is not funny! Every time the witchcraft comes to me, I hurt people! I kill people! You are cavalier with your son! I am cautious for a reason!_

“Easy,” he says to her, and he puts a hand out. The last thing he wants is for her to be worked up while trying to use the magic. “I’m just suggesting that maybe you can use it without hurting anyone, like the kid does.”

She hangs her head. This whole narrative seems reversed to Din: if either of them shouldn’t have control over the magic, it seems like the kid shouldn’t. He’s a baby. He’s still learning his colors. But maybe it’s because the kid doesn’t fear of his powers and uses them at his whims, and that K’Grawa doesn’t have the practice needed to control them.

K’Grawa lifts both hands toward the table. He watches her closely, and so does the adi’ka, peeping between his arms. For a long moment, nothing happens. She takes a deep breath, and her shoulders hunch. Her body is poised with tension and energy when at last, a blue pencil rocks on the table.

She jerks her hands back with a gasp. She looks at him for guidance, and he shrugs and tilts his helm toward the pencil. K’Grawa huffs. She holds her hands out, and this time, it comes more readily to her. Din watches with wonder as the pencil tip wobbles and lifts up with no discernible force moving it until it stands up straight. Then, it levitates off the table.

He’s seen the kid do this before, but there’s still a sense of uneasy amazement whenever he sees it happen. The sorcery is unnatural at best, and always unbelievable until he’s staring it right in the face. K’Grawa holds the pencil there, and it rolls at a languid pace until it abruptly drops to the table. K’Grawa looks expectantly at him.

He grunts. “There you go then,” he says. “Practice makes perfect.”

_Practice_ , she signs, slow and hesitant.

The kid crawls out of his arms. He goes right for the pencils again, scribbling away at what might be called a masterpiece of smears. K’Grawa gestures with her fingers and the pencil stands up, freezes, and then falls again.

Din slouches down, crosses his arms, and goes back to sleep.

***

The third time he hears her speak on the journey to Nevarro, she has the kid’s food, but he’s too enraptured by Gnarr’s throaty rumbling. He’s scratching the dog’s throat. He doesn’t see her signing to him, and isn’t responding to her tapping the table.

Din opens his mouth to get his attention when K’Grawa says with careful, clear enunciation, “Ad’ika.”

Both his and the kid’s head turn to her.

She signs, _Food_ , to the child, and he comes to her when she sits him down to eat. Din stares at her long enough that she notices and straightens.

“What did you call him?” he finally asks.

She’s still with hesitation. She signs back, _That is his name, is it not?_ When Din can’t stop staring at her, she stubbornly elaborates, _I have heard you call him by that name._

Din manages to loosen his tongue. “That’s not his name.” K’Grawa cocks her head. “It’s a Mandalorian word. It’s a term for a little one. A child.”

_What is his name?_

“I don’t know.”

_Then you should name him._

“He’s not mine to name,” he says sharply. K’Grawa sits up and folds her hands in her lap, and he’s annoyed that her poise feels judgmental. He rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “He’s fifty years old. Someone’s already named him.”

_How old?_

“Fifty.”

K’Grawa chuffs a noise suspiciously close to a laugh. _This child is not fifty. He would be as old as the elders!_

Din waits a beat for the seriousness to sink in for her. She looks at the child, at Din, and then surveys the kid with her head cocked curiously. _Fifty_ , she signs slowly. _He is older than me. How long does he live if he has not matured by fifty?_

“I don’t know.”

He hands her her dinner, and she takes it absently, watching the kid pick at his food. Din cuts another slab of meat from the rapidly diminishing kryat meat and tosses it to Gnarr. The massiff snatches it out of the air, retreating to a corner to devour her portion. Din waits to grab his rations when for once, K’Grawa hesitates. She’s still knelt next to the kid, her tin of food closed up. She looks up at him.

_What do you know about him?_

Din sighs and leans against the bulwark of the ship. “His age. His powers. The things he likes to play with.”

He can’t elaborate more than that. He doesn’t know the kid’s name, or what species he is, or where he comes from. But he does know the sound of his feet pattering on the floor of the ship, the babble of his voice when he’s happy or upset, and the way he’ll sometimes sneak out of his hammock to snuggle into his side. They’re useless observations to what K’Grawa is asking.

He knows next to nothing about the kid, but he KNOWS him. That’s a careful distinction he’s not sure he should be making, especially with them so close to finding the kid’s kind.

_How did you meet him?_

Din hesitates. After everything that’s happened, all these months of knowing the child, it feels like so long ago. It feels like yesterday. He wrestles with how to explain their fraught meetings and eventual falling in together, and finally says, “He was my quarry.”

K’Grawa turns her head to him, and he can feel the weight of her eyes upon him, heavy and judging. _He has gone from your quarry to your son?_

He feels like he should correct her. She’s called the kid his son several times when he’s not, not really. He’s as his father, but isn’t REALLY. He’s merely functioning as a stand in. His stomach twists with confused, tight emotion.

He’s not his son. But he can’t imagine trying to untangle all of this for K’Grawa to understand, as literal as she is, so instead he admits, “I gave him up for my armor.” K’Grawa straightens, and her posture tightens with threat. “It’s made of beskar,” he explains, gesturing to the silver skin. “Beskar is sacred to Mandalorians, like water is sacred to the Sand People. Giving the child to them allowed me to reclaim it from our colonizers.”

She huffs. She understands why, but she still doesn’t approve. _But you took him back,_ she assumes correctly. _When did he transition from quarry to child?_

“He—” It’s hard to pinpoint the moment. Was it when he couldn’t leave him behind on Nevarro? Was it when the kid saved him from the mudhorn? Or was it watching him play with the control knob? The sound of his feet pattering after him and Kuiil the long days while he repaired the Razor Crest? Or maybe, from the very first day, when he couldn’t let IG-88 kill him.

The kid slipped imperceptibly into his life, filling a place he didn’t know was empty. Din huffs, and his eyelids flutter when he finally says, “I don’t know. He just did.”

K’Grawa nods like this is understandable. She looks at the child that’s absently munching on his food while he watches them talk. Din studies her, lips pressing with thought. He knows most Sand People have a gendered society. The women stay home and care for the children and the settlement; the men hunt. Compulsive heterosexuality lingers due to their need to have children to bolster their numbers in the wake of weather, famine, and the settlers.

He hadn’t considered how K’Grawa fit into her society. She cares for the ad’ika with a soft ease that speaks of motherhood, and yet, she’s left nothing behind. She is a warrior, like the men of her tribe, yet she wears the gendered robes of women. Was she unable to have her own children, and so was put to work as a warrior? Same sex coupling and transgender Sand People are rare, but this could also be the case.

He’s struck with the thought that he knows just as little about K’Grawa as he knows about the kid, but in a sense, he still KNOWS her. He knows her short-tempered penchant for violence, her love of the color blue, and her decision to use sign language over spoken. He knows the murmur of her voice to the child when she thinks Din’s not listening, and he anticipates the cadence of her hands when she speaks.

K’Grawa’s visor turns his way, and he rocks back on his heels, caught staring. Maybe he’s over-thinking all of this. Her head tilts imperceptibly, and she asks, _What is the creature on your shoulder?_

He looks down on the symbol. “It’s a mudhorn.”

_Did you slay it?_

“With help.”

His helm must subconsciously tilt towards the kid, because K’Grawa looks at him and back before signing, _The witchcraft?_ He nods. _He is very powerful then. That is why people hunt him._ Din nods again. _Now you wear the creature’s face as a sign of your courage._

“No.” It wasn’t courage, he doesn’t think. He was beaten into the mud, dragged, armor demolished by a living creature when it can repel blaster bolts. It was not a high point in his life, full of courage and the thrill of battle, like fighting the king krayt. He merely did what he had to because otherwise, there was no getting out of the situation he was in. The life of a bounty hunter isn’t flashy in the least.

Din draws in a breath and says to her, “It’s our clan signet. The kid and I—we’re Clan Mudhorn.”

K’Grawa’s hands sink. _Just you two?_

“Yes.”

_Will your tribe grow?_

He doesn’t think so. He thinks their little clan will dissolve once he gives the kid back to his kind. Then, he’ll be alone again, as he always was. “Maybe. Or maybe not. It’ll certainly never be as big as your Shaanri Tribe. We—”

_Don’t_. Her hand slashes down, cutting him off. Her shoulders heave with a hard breath, and he realizes he’s misspoken. _I am without tribe. I am adrift. Please do not associate me with them anymore._

He swallows under his helmet. He’s upset for distressing her about fresh wounds. “I’m sorry,” he says, unable to do more for her. “It won’t happen again.”

K’Grawa nods and stands. She pats her thigh, and Gnarr falls in step behind her as she disappears to the little storage room to eat. Din watches her go, twisted up with troubles for twisting that knife in her. He blasts out a sigh and looks at the kid. His big eyes swing from where K’Grawa disappeared and to Din, questioning, worried.

“Yeah, I know kid,” he murmurs. The tot croons sadly, ears drooping. Din grabs his dinner and sits down next to him, and he pats his back. “Chin up ad’ika. Seems like she’s been through a lot.”


	5. Chapter 5

**“Love only left me alone**   
**But I'm at one with the silence**

**I found peace in your violence**   
**Can't tell me there's no point in trying**   
**I'm at one, and I've been quiet for too long”**

_**Silence __ Marshmellow** _

“So who’s your friend?”

When they land on Nevarro, they are greeted by a dark human male and a pale human woman. The man? Too excited and enamored by the child to do little more than double take at K’Grawa’s presence with the Mandalorian. It’s the woman who addresses her, and K’Grawa straightens her spine. By unspoken challenge, they size each other up.

“This is K’Grawa,” the Mandalorian introduces her. “She’s traveling with me.”

The woman looks amused. “You keep picking up the strangest strays.”

“She’s good with the kid,” is all he says to that. K’Grawa huffs, annoyed he feels the need to explain her presence to his teasing friend. He gestures to the buff woman. “This is Cara Dune.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Dune says. She sticks her hand out. K’Grawa takes it, and the woman has a crushing grip. She’s glad her mask hides the way she winces. Dune points her thumb behind them where the other human is disappearing with the Mandalorian’s son. “Grandpa back there is Greef Karga.” She grins like Gnarr at their feet, wide and toothy. “Don’t let him give you too much grief.”

They walk into a settlement, and they talk back and forth with the Mandalorian about how their town has grown and improved. K’Grawa watches the Mandalorian associate with them, noting his relaxed posture. The controlled poise she’s witnessed from him so far has melted away to comfort and ease. His arms swing when he walks. He’s downright casual. This is the farthest he’s ever let his son out of his line of sight. He did not hesitate to allow Karga to take the child from him. These are trusted friends.

They surprise him when they take him to a small school. His voice is measured, but she hears a new inflection in his voice she’s never heard before when he says, “A school?”

Despite her tough exterior, Dune swells with pride when she says, “Things have changed a lot around here.”

Karga moves toward the litter of children, saying, “We’re gonna leave the little one here so we can talk business.”

“Wait—” The Mandalorian abruptly takes a step forward, putting out his hand. “Wherever I go, he goes—”

“Mando, please,” Karga says, and K’Grawa is surprised to find that even he, a man entrusted with the Mandalorian’s son, does not know his name. “Where we’re going you don’t want to take a child, trust me.” Karga walks off with the Mandalorian’s uli’ah, placing him in an empty chair.

“He’ll be fine here,” Dune says. “You have my word.”

K’Grawa huffs under her breath. The Mandalorian’s posture is twined tight, and his body lists in the direction of his son. He is an overzealous parent, too anxious about being separated from his child. K’Grawa smacks his pauldron with the back of her hand. He turns to her, and she signs, _I will stay with him._

After fighting for his son, she must have gained his trust as these people have. The Mandalorian’s shoulders droops imperceptibly with relief, and he says, “Thank you.” She watches him go with his acquaintances, and he sends one last glance back at them as he goes.

She’s used to being around kids, but not settler children. She slips into the room around the tiny desks and chairs with Gnarr on her heels, and she sends the kids into a second round of whispering. There are audible gasps at Gnarr, but the massiff is placid and sits on her heels. After all, massiffs are trained for herding and protecting wayward children. K’Grawa crouches to the hard floor and sits next to the uli’ah’s desk while the droid attempts to get control of the class.

The boy next to the Mandalorian’s ad’ika eats some sort of sweet. The baby puts his arm out for one, but the older one says, “No!” and K’Grawa rolls her eyes. Have his parents not taught him to share? They let such an unruly son not care for the community around him? They are terrible parents. The other parents in the community must show them better if he is to function properly with their society. The Sand People would never let such a thing slide.

She’s contemplating how to communicate enough Basic to the settler child on the rules of Sand People culture when the bag of cookies twitches. A pressure draws on the air, and she looks down on the Mandalorian’s child. The uli’ah, with some unseen string, yanks the cookies to his hand and immediately digs in. The settler boy looks over, confused, disturbed.

K’Grawa grumbles under her breath, pleased. The Mandalorian’s child would make a fine Sand Person! When the settler boy shifts in his chair to take the cookies back, K’Grawa growls. He sits back and faces forward.

***

“So what’s up with the Tusken?”

Din turns his head to Cara, and she has a skeptical brow raised high at him. Greef also looks over his shoulder, chiming in, “I didn’t think Tuskens even left Tatooine. Aren’t they savages?”

He blasts out a heavy breath. He knows the Sand People have a reputation that precedes them, but he can’t help but note that it’s because of the reputation they’ve cultivated that compels people to write them off as savages. And because of that, they think of them as less than animals, so they kill them like animals. And so the cycle of violence never ends.

“Not savage,” Din says. “She’s learned a lot.”

“All the baby sitters you could hire to take care of the kid, and you pick a Tusken?” Cara shakes her head, and Din braces. She’s perceptive and smart. It’s hard to hide something from her because she knows him well. “What’s the story there?”

He doesn’t know the full story, and it’s not his to tell. Too many people already know about the kid’s powers, and there’s no use in putting that target on K’Grawa’s back as well. “She has a personal quest off planet,” he says. “The Sand People asked me to take her with me, and I agreed. Her being good with the kid is only a bonus.”

Greef laughs. “What’s next for you then? A Jawa? A Geonosian? You seem to attract the colorful type. I’m surprised you could even get her on the ship, with how much Tuskens hate technology.”

“She doesn’t hate technology,” he argues. “She just doesn’t understand it.”

“Ignorance and hate are two sides of the same coin,” Cara says. There’s a beat where Din bites back any more explanations or justifications about K’Grawa. He knows they’re egging him on on purpose.

“So,” and Cara grins at him and wiggles her brows. “Do you LIKE her?”

There it is. He doesn’t stifle his sigh. “What’s the mission?”

Greef and Cara trade looks in front of him. “Fast change of subject,” Greef says.

“A little too fast if you ask me.”

“What does she look like under—?” Greef falters mid tease and continues with, “Must be hard to kiss with the helmets.”

“I think a little puppy love would do him some good.”

“The MISSION,” Din stresses. They laugh at him, but obligingly stop the teasing. Greef gestures him to follow them into a nearby building.

***

The repairs will take all morning and afternoon. The Mandalorian returns briefly in the doorway to sign that he will be gone most of the day on a raid. She nods, and though she’s tempted to ask if she can come—the long days cooped up in his ship have made her antsy, like a hungry anooba—she does not. He is worried for his son. She will do her part so his ad’ika is watched over by someone he trusts, and not a droid in charge of strange children.

Though she’s seen the ul’iah swallow things in shockingly large bursts, he does not do so with the cookies. He nibbles on them in small bites, seeming to savor them like ripe desert plums. K’Grawa sits with the child, watching his various idiosyncrasies, the way his ears cock with emotion, his wide, unblinking curiosity, and the way he taps his claws and wiggles his bare feet.

The droid moves from teaching the Settler class about the hyperspace lanes and to teaching sums. The droid hands out sheets and pencils, and even the Mandalorian’s uli’ah gets one. K’Grawa snorts under her breath. His child is learning his colors still. She doubts he can add.

Instead, she scoots forward to his chair, and many heads turn to her movement. She flips the page over so it’s clear, steals the pencil out of the hand of the settler child from before, and begins to draw on it with the ad’ika. The settler boy sits uncomfortably, looking around for help when the machine teacher intones, “Eyes on your own paper.” He looks down, miming having a pencil to complete his work.

K’Grawa coos to the child, encouraging his good work, and he babbles back to her. His speech bubbles and pops like water surfacing from deep under the ground. It’s a lively, delightful sound that reminds her of blessed times and buoys her with happiness. She uses a finger to rub the back of his bowed head, and he gurgles with contentment.

When the teacher collects the papers, the child proudly hands his up as well. The droid stops, stares at the paper like it’s malfunctioning, and then performs some calculations. Seemingly realizing the Mandalorian’s child is mentally younger, and an anomaly in its class, the droid announces to them, “I will find you some colors to occupy yourself.” It takes up the settler boy’s paper, and he is red faced with shame.

Once they have colors and a book full of pictures, the child and K’Grawa color together. The class moves on to the local history, except for the girl sitting behind them who is desperately trying to get Gnarr to move close enough so she can pet her.

At some point, the uli’ah moves to an empty corner of the pictures and draws freehand again. He uses green for himself. He uses gray for the Mandalorian. He uses brown for K’Grawa. She watches him, overwhelmed, kneading a blue pencil in her grip until it breaks.

“Eh?” is what the ad’ika says to her, and he looks up from his drawing. K’Grawa’s throat tightens. He doesn’t speak her language, and she can barely speak his. How can she possibly explain to him how her heart swells with affection seeing him include her? She manages to squeeze out a gruff, “Good,” in the Settler’s Basic, and he squeaks again with delight from hearing her speak. She wiggles her shoulders to indicate her happiness, and though the uli’ah is not familiar with the physical communication of the Sand People, he mimics her. Her heart fills until she’s sure she’s overflowing with love, and he goes back to work on his masterpiece.

Children are pure and kind, and the Mandalorian’s child is no different. K’Grawa thought she wanted to go on the raid, to expend her antsy energy and fight when so much anger has consumed her. Now, she is glad she didn’t. Though he might not understand it, the uli’ah has given her a precious gift, the illusion of belonging, if at least to him. K’Grawa reaches up and squeezes her throat against the emotion clogging her airways.

Children are so easy to love. She has lost all of hers by blood, but she is thankful that she has the Mandalorian’s, however tenuously.

The child’s ears rotate upward, and he puts his pencils down. He coos at her, and his big, dark eyes swallow her up like the comforting night sky. He puts his arms up to her, and K’Grawa obediently tucks him close to her chest. She curls up with him by his desk, heart panging at the way his little hands and feet clutch to her, the way his forehead snuggles into her breast. She cradles him, aching for her children long past, and devastated by the uli’ah’s affection. Her shoulders shake with silent tears, and she is so glad to have him.

They sit like this through the history portion of the class. They cuddle so long the adi’ka’s eyes droop, and he naps through the next lecture. K’Grawa reaches and rips out the lower right corner of the page with the child’s drawing, and she tucks it into her bag so she can show the Mandalorian. If she was moved by his art, his father will no doubt be overjoyed.

The sun has well moved past noon when the class, buzzing with excitement, run outside according to the teacher’s orders. K’Grawa watches them bolt like a pack of anooba on the hunt, and the child starts awake, rubbing his eyes. The droid, with its tiny, stilted steps, says to them, “It is time for recess. The children have learned. Now they may play for half an hour, and the parents will pick them up.”

She’s never heard of the word “recess” but she knows the word for play. She signs, Play? to the child, and despite not understanding, he gabs and reaches to the door. She stands up with him, pats her thigh, and has Gnarr follow her outside to the back of the building where the kids run with various games. When they see her, she’s immediately accosted by no less than five children, all asking,

“Can we pet your dog?”

“Is it even a dog?”

“What species is your son?”

“Can we play with your dog?”

K’Grawa falters on her heels. She sets the child by her feet and takes his cookies to hold for him. She signs, _He is not my son,_ but she’s only met by confused stares.

“Don’t you speak Basic?” K’Grawa shakes her head. One of the kids whispers, “She’s a Tusken Raider, isn’t she?” and another furiously whispers back, “Don’t be stupid! Tuskens don’t leave Tatooine.”

“Can we play with your dog?” they ask again.

K’Grawa nods, and the kids squeal with delight as they collectively mob Gnarr. The massiff relishes in the attention, plopping down and rolling on her back as she eats up their pets. K’Grawa motions the uli’ah forward, and he toddles on his feet out toward the sandbox.

K’Grawa stands at the edge of the playground, watching the Mandalorian’s child closely. The other kids play nicely with him, helping him make sand castles and shallow valleys. Gnarr plays fetch and absorbs all the attention she can, her nubby tail wagging a mile a minute.

So when she hears the Mandalorian’s jetpack and sees him land in a hectic rush in the middle of the playground, she’s shocked, but snappy.

She leaps to her feet and rushes to the adi’ka, picking him up and barking for Gnarr. The massiff bounds to her side, and the Mandalorian runs up to her.

“We need to go,” he says, and he rushes past. K’Grawa follows, and they run back to his ship like a pack of anooba are on his heels. K’Grawa wants to run faster, but she would leave behind the Mandalorian who is weighed down by his armor and jetpack. Instead, she follows him to his ship where the repairs have finished and climbs into the cockpit.

He flips switches, starting up the engines, and she straps in his son. She hands the child the cookies and takes her seat, struggling to fasten her belt by the time the thrusters kick in. They take off with an abrupt lurch. K’Grawa grips the seat and her stomach lurches somewhere under her spine.

The Mandalorian shoots down one of three ships that have two thin, up-and-down wings on them. He glances back at his son and says, “Hang on kid,” before he shoves a lever forward, and the engines kick again. K’Grawa grunts breathlessly when an invisible force slams her back against her seat as they climb straight up. And climb. And climb. The uli’ah giggles and squeals with delight, and K’Grawa clutches her seat for dear life.

She hate, hate, HATES flying!

Lasers shoot from the ship, and in a blast of fire and sparks, the craft ahead of them splits in twain. Then, Mandalorian jerks the lever back, and K’Grawa grunts, thrown forward into the seatbelt. She gapes, feeling sick when they hover, almost weightless, and the sky spins away so she can see the earth below. Then, they rocket forward again, and she presses into the seat, sweating, terrified as they begin to spin. Blaster fire whizzes past the windshield, the child is screaming with laughter, the Mandalorian hasn’t broken focus once, and K’Grawa’s eyes are spinning in their sockets—

Finally, he hits his mark. The last ship explodes. The flight levels out and they stop spinning. Nausea whirls in K’Grawa’s stomach, but she beats it down, determined not to make a mess of herself.

The Mandalorian turns around in excitement, bursting, “Not too bad, huh, kid?”

The ad’ika takes one long look at him and promptly throws up.

“Oh boy.”

It takes K’Grawa an extended moment to unlatch her vice-like hands from the seat, and she picks up the edge of her skirt. Her hand collides with the Mandalorian’s as they both wipe exceedingly blue spit up. Her hand jumps from his, startled by touching him, surprised to feel knuckles as warm and alive as her own.

The Mandalorian takes the ship into the stars, making them “jump” into hyperspace. K’Grawa pulls the soiled rucksack over the uli’ah’s head, and the kid kicks, babbling with upset and shoving the cookies away. She puts the sweets into her bag, and tucks his weird, naked body under her shroud for warmth.

She startles when the Mandalorian stands from his chair, taking the dirty jumper from her hand. “He has a spare,” he says to her, and she nods. She carefully follows him down the ladder, one hand under the adi’ka’s butt, and the Mandalorian stands at the bottom, hands ready to catch her if she falls. When her feet are on the floor, he shows her where he keeps the spare outfit. He takes the soiled rucksack to clean it, and Gnarr follows him around the corner, smelling the spit up.

When she pulls the child from under her shroud, his ears pop up, and he exclaims, “Batu!” Delighted with the game of peek-a-boo, K’Grawa shimmies her shoulders for him, and tucks him under. She uncovers him, and he bursts, “Batu!” She can’t contain her happy wiggle. She does it again. He does it again. She boops his nose, and he giggles.

K’Grawa plays this game with him until she feels a gaze on them. She abruptly stops and straightens, noticing the Mandalorian watching through his dark t-visor. Flustered for some reason, K’Grawa signs, _Why did we run so fast?_ She grabs the jumper and helps dress the child.

The Mandalorian stands opposite of her and his head tilts down to the uli’ah. After a long moment, he says, “Moff Gideon.” The child’s head whips to him. “He wants the kid. He’s doing some sort of . . . experiments with his blood.”

_What do you mean?_

He shakes his head, and the adi’ka reaches out to him. She hands over the child, and he snuggles into his father’s side. “I don’t know,” the Mandalorian says. “They’re harvesting his blood. They’re giving it to these . . . Twisted bodies.”

K’Grawa feels something heavy and sick clench in her stomach. The child’s eyes are dark and avoiding them in favor of burrowing into the Mandalorian’s tummy. _Bodies? Twisted how?_

He shakes his head again, at a loss for words. He rubs the kid’s back, rasping, “I don’t know. They . . . didn’t even look like bodies. All their features were mashed together. Like they’d been blended together.”

K’Grawa makes the sign of the Mother Moon over her eyes to protect herself against evil. Then, she signs, _These are the people who hunt him._

“Yes. I thought Moff Gideon was dead, but he’s still out there.”

She stares at this tiny, old baby and his father, a man living in a suit of cold metal. While his metal may be cold, he is not. She has seen him do all he can to protect his child. She has seen him fight for others. He has brokered peace between the Shaanri Tribe and Mos Pelgo, a feat seeming impossible in the wake of their deep hatred toward one another. She has felt the heat of life in his fingers. She has warmed to this man like the sands to the heat of the suns, because like the sun, he is warm.

She hikes her chin and assures him, _If this Gideon finds us, then the only thing he will find is death. We will not allow him to take your son. We will not allow him one more drop of his blood._

He is hard to read behind his mask and his restrained body language, but he nods, strong and sure. “Thank you.”

The moment stretches, and K’Grawa falters, unsure of the energy tense between them. She sways back on her heels before she remembers the picture. She signs, _Look what your son has drawn,_ and pulls out the scrap of paper. She shows it to him, brimming with pride.

The Mandalorian’s head shifts backwards with surprise. He cants his helm down to look at the uli’ah, and he rubs his stomach with a finger. “What’s that, you little womp rat? You drew that? Great job! Looks good.”

His ad’ika perks his ears up and coos under the praise of his father. He points at K’Grawa, and the Mandalorian says, “Yeah? I see her too. We’re all there.”

The kid pronounces loudly, “Batu!” and pulls on the Mandalorian’s glove. K’Grawa offers the Mandalorian the drawing, but he doesn’t seem to notice. His entire body has swayed down and around his son, all eyes for the kid’s attention. “Yeah? You’ve stuffed yourself full of cookies and thrown it up and you want to eat again?”

“Batu.”

“All right, kid, give me a second.”

He moves off to fetch him food, and K’Grawa looks down on the drawing. She’s glad the Mandalorian is distracted by the uli’ah. She slips the paper into her pouch, satisfied that she can keep it for her own personal viewing. Only then does she join in the hunt for dinner.

***

When the gangplank to the Razor Crest drops, the Mandalorian says, “This is our only stop to Corvus, so stretch your legs. We’re only staying an hour, so keep close. We’ll get fuel and restock on food and be on our way.”

K’Grawa darts down the ramp with Gnarr on her heels, and the massiff throws herself on the ground and immediately rolls in the dirt. The planet stretches before them, hot and humid, peppered with jutting mountains and trees taller than the tallest, sacred, ancient cacti on Tatooine. She’s never seen so much green in her whole life, and she bounces on her toes, excited, wanting to see more.

The settlement is as small as the fishing town on Trask. The huts are thatched with grass roofs, brown and stiff buildings that blend into their environment. The creatures here are bipedal like the settlers, but shaped like animals. There are scaly ones with teeth like massiffs, bug-eyed ones with antenna, ones with crowns of horns, and hairy ones more like wolves than man.

K’Grawa turns to the Mandalorian, and she asks, _May I take the uli’ah and Gnarr to play?_ He hesitates, and she resists the urge to playfully smack his shoulder for his excessive worry. _We will not stray far from the ship. The sun and soil will be good for us._

He sighs, and she hears the defeat in his tone before he says, “Be careful then.” He hands the child to her, and she sits him on her hip. The Mandalorian looks out over the town where several look curiously at their odd ensemble. “Maybe it’s better no one in town sees him anyways.”

K’Grawa nods, and when the landing pad owner comes their way, she snaps for Gnarr and heads into the wilds. She rushes up to the nearest tree, with its brown skin and knobbed bark, and she marvels at the strength of it. None of the spindly fruit trees on Tatooine grow so thick or tall, with so many limbs high above. Leaves and branches crunch underfoot. K’Grawa spins as she walks, looking down, wondering how easy the animals here would be to track, and then wondering how she would track them if she cannot sneak up on them.

Gnarr snuffles ahead of them, zigzagging wildly with excitement and rolling in the soft, spongy earth. K’Grawa sets the adi’ka down, and he squeals, chasing after Gnarr. K’Grawa walks farther away from the ship, making sure to keep it in clear sight. Once she’s sure the child is preoccupied with Gnarr and no one from the landing can see her, she crouches.

K’Grawa slips her glove off and puts her hand bare into the earth of another planet. Her breath catches, because the ground is warm and moist. The soil is rich and fertile with living waters dampening it. She grabs a handful, watching it clump in her palm and stick to her hand. The dirt darkens her fingers.

This is a planet bursting with life. She can feel the wetness of water in the air and in the earth. The loose, gritty sands of Tatooine cannot support life like this soil can. She knows it’s likely futile to carry such earth with her, but she replaces her glove and grabs a squared cloth from her bag. She fills it with the life soil, pulls up the corners, ties off the top of it with twine, and stows it in her pouch.

K’Grawa goes back to the kid, and she grabs a fallen stick for Gnarr. She plays fetch with her, and Gnarr chases the stick the way she would a bone back home. When the uli’ah wants to try, K’Grawa picks him up and puts his hand on the stick. She puts her hand over his, and she helps him throw it. He giggles even though the stick falls short.

Gnarr brings the stick back every time, eager to stretch her legs, when the child does something K’Grawa does not expect. He reaches out, and the stick lifts with magic. K’Grawa freezes, watching this, and Gnarr splays her paws, vibrating with excitement. Then, the branch flicks out, flying farther than even K’Grawa’s arm could throw it, and Gnarr goes bounding after it at full speed. K’Grawa stares at the kid laughs and laughs, clapping his hands.

They spend their time soaking in the sun, playing in the dirt and playing with Gnarr. K’Grawa is beginning to wonder when the Mandalorian will come back when Gnarr shifts.

The massiff whips around and growls. She lunges toward the uli’ah and picks him up by the scruff of his rucksack. K’Grawa snaps upright and grabs her gaffi stick when the dog goes on alert and carries the child to her. The gaffi stick requires two hands, but K’Grawa stoops and picks him up, eyes scouring the forest. She reaches her senses out, listening for the danger, looking for it, smelling the sharp, heady scent of pine but the sting of wet fur on the wind.

The noise of their footsteps lets her hear them before she sees them. They block off her path toward the Mandalorian’s ship, just visible from the forest edge. Lizard people, furred wolf people, horned people. It’s a group. She counts seven. She’s wildly outnumbered, and Gnarr’s growling reaches a noisy pitch.

She backs toward the cover of the forest, but a horned man points a blaster at her. She freezes. “Here’s the deal,” he says lazily. “Give us the green thing, and we let you and your mutt live. Alright? Just set him down and back away, or we’ll unload.”

K’Grawa holds her silence and flicks her eyes past them to the town. The Mandalorian’s gleaming silver skin is nowhere to be seen. Her breath thins, and she shifts onto her toes, holding the child close. His ears have flicked back.

“Ssshe’sss a Tusssken,” one of the reptiles hisses. It flicks the safety off a gun and gestures the nose of its gun toward them. “Jussst kill them!”

The Horned Man looks bored when he asks her, “You speak Common? Do you understand me?”

Pressure in the air fuels under K’Grawa’s skin. Her veins vibrate with energy, and with a start, she recognizes the power of the witchcraft surging in her. She beats it down, afraid to unleash it, afraid she’ll hurt the Mandalorian’s son.

Gnarr’s spines rise aggressively. She roars, a caterwaul that usually ricochets among the canyon walls that carries for miles. Here in the forest, it echoes out into nothing. K’Grawa hopes the Mandalorian can hear it.

The Horned Man shrugs. “Whatever. Let’s take it in alive boys, more money that way,” and he squeezes the trigger, but K’Grawa is already moving.

She leaps to the side like an anooba beginning the chase. The soft, composting ground sinks beneath her toes as she runs, and the flashes of blaster fire fly in a field around her. Gnarr bounds forward to the tree line first, skittering through the underbrush. K’Grawa hunches over the child and hustles after, feet as fleet as desperate prey, and she hears her predators cursing, shouting and giving chase.

K’Grawa flees into the jungle, heart in her throat, toddler in her arms, racing towards sanctuary in the unknown. She hopes the Mandalorian will see the evidence of trouble. She prays he has heard the howl of a massiff protecting a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aggghh why is writing so hard? haha. I'm excited to get to the latter half of the Mandalorian s2 episodes, but for now I'm going to take some liberties to facilitate some old-fashioned bonding time through classic "protect the baby!" shenanigans. Every day K'Grawa falls a little more in love with this kid.
> 
> Also: a Tuseken's greatest quality? Their wiggles. Happiness is stored in the wiggles.

**Author's Note:**

> And there you have it, folks, my first foray into Star Wars fanficcing. I hope y'all enjoyed it, and if you did, hope you tell your friends too. I intend to keep adding to this (and hopefully get better at writing Din and the kid, fuck they're hard to write) though I imagine updates will be slow. This isn't top priority for me right now, but it's definitely an indulgence I'm enjoying a lot.


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